


Galatea in Bondage

by Twinelove89



Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Alpha Tommy Shelby, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/Omega, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Attempted Sexual Assault, BDSM, Belts, Blow Jobs, Bondage, Bondage and Discipline, Caning, Canon-Typical Violence, Class Differences, Class Issues, Collars, Desk Sex, Dom/sub, Dominant Tommy Shelby, Dubious Consent, Dubious Ethics, Dubious Morality, Dubiously Consensual Blow Jobs, Extremely Dubious Consent, F/M, First Time Blow Jobs, Heavy BDSM, Kidnapping, Kneeling, Light Bondage, Look it's all around dubious okay, Loss of Virginity, Multiple Orgasms, Non-Sexual Submission, Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Office Sex, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Orgasm Denial, Period Typical Attitudes, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Racism, Period-Typical Sexism, Possibly Unrequited Love, Praise Kink, Rope Bondage, Rough Sex, Service Submission, Spanking, Under-Desk Blow Jobs, Unrequited Love, Victorian Attitudes, Violence, Virginity Kink, collaring, pearls, spanking with belts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-02
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:15:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 22
Words: 124,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24499276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Twinelove89/pseuds/Twinelove89
Summary: What do you do with a girl who is sent to you as a gift from your enemy? Make her your ally of course. Tommy finds a girl tied up in a crate on the banks of the Cut.As with the last story, I wrote what in my opinion is consensual sex but tagged aggressively. I also ignored all the family drama at the end of season five because I don't know where it's going and I like it better when Tommy and Polly get along and his affair with Lizzie/the existence of Ruby because honestly... I just wasn't feeling it.
Relationships: Grace Burgess/Tommy Shelby, Tommy Shelby/Original Character(s), Tommy Shelby/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 537
Kudos: 539
Collections: R's Smut





	1. Chapter 1

Thomas Shelby hated to watch Oswald Mosley eat. Mosley was a self-considered gourmand, and, anyone who dined with him as much as Tommy did could hardly fail to notice, unsettlingly voracious for a man so thin. There was something repulsive about watching him, so restrained in other indulgences, normally so reserved, satisfy his prodigious appetite. It made something just beneath Tommy's voice box feel tense, as if he were about to retch.

The pounding headache and sensitive stomach of his hangover certainly didn't help either.

Tommy's own food lay nearly untouched though he was on his third cigarette since they'd sat down. He took a sip of black coffee and tried to reason with his aching head. He hadn't touched the opium pipe since that day in the field when he'd held a gun to his head and the vision of Grace had begged him to join her. The visions had receded slowly, Grace falling mute at first, then visiting less and less frequently. The booze did a worse job with the pain in his head and he still refused to see the doctor that Ada kept going on about though.

He'd been shaking when he came back into the house that morning, mud up to his knees having fallen twice in the field. But he'd sat with a cigarette and a glass of whiskey until the vision of Grace had finally vanished. Then he had picked up the phone and made arrangements for Aberama's funeral, for the money he had promised Barney to be sent to his mother, and finally, a meeting with Winston Churchill.

Back in his sunny tea room of their mutual club, Mosley finished the last bite of baked beans and wiped his lips delicately. “You look like hell Shelby.” He said.

“I feel like hell.”

“I recall telling you months ago to drink less.”

“I recall that too.”

“And yet you persist.”

“So it would seem.”

“You drink too much, don't eat, smoke like a chimney.” Mosley considered him for a long moment. “When was the last time you had a good fuck then, eh Shelby?”

Tommy laughed, then winced as the movement made pain shoot through his aching skull. “I'm not interested in your wife. Nor her sister or her mother. Much though I appreciate your concern.”

Mosley said nothing to that.

“I suppose you'll tell me in your own time why the fuck you've come to call on me this morning then?” Tommy said, suddenly feeling very tired.

“As ever, your decorum leaves much to be desired.”

Tommy took a deep drag on his cigarette, but didn't refute it.

“I've asked our mutual friend Mr. McCavern to send something along with his next shipment to you. I would appreciate it if you would receive the cargo yourself, to make sure that no... damage is done to it.”

“Micheal deals with the business side of things now Mosley. Remember, I'm only the executive chair these days. I don't go to the fucking docks at midnight anymore. I hardly go to the fucking company meetings.” Tommy said.

That stipulation of the conversation with Churchill—that he allow Micheal to move forward as director of the company in his stead-- had been the most difficult for him to accept. There had been some long-winded metaphor drawn between what they were doing and baiting a fox but Tommy had barely listened to it. He had known before he was told that he wasn't at rock bottom yet, that Mosley was the kind of evil that he would be required to sink into fully before he could be defeated. The water had closed over his head, sure, but he was still falling through it, yet to reach the thud of the bottom yet.

Still, the step back from the business had been agony. The company was making money hand-over-fist in America with Micheal at the helm and Tommy's own political career had hardly suffered from his new attention to it. But Christ, he hated the work. Politics was not like business. There was no clean ledger to look at influence, favors, power. No way to know exactly where one stood. He missed the clean black and white of a betting book.

But those days were gone, for the moment.

“Besides, I trust my men, whatever it is that you're sending, you have no need to fear they'll take a cut of it.” He added.

“Consider it... a personal favor to me. The cargo inside is quite precious and, as you said, it wouldn't do for your men to _take a share_ , as it were. “Mosley let a small, sardonic smile touching his lips. “Besides, it is a gift for you. One I would like you to receive personally.”

Tommy let out an incredulous noise. “A gift?”

“A tool of sorts. For you to further advance our cause.”

“What is it?”

“You'll understand when you see it.”

The pounding in his head made him want to punch Mosley for the stupid games he was playing but also filled him with an overwhelming sense of fatigue. He nodded. “Alright, then.”

“Thank you.” Mosley said. He tapped the paper with one spidery finger. “After all, in these heathen times, one can never be to careful, wouldn't you say?”

Tommy made a noncommittal noise. He hadn't read the article Mosley indicated. It had been front page news a week ago but now had fallen below the fold in the meantime, relegated now to some Omega opinion piece the title of which was ' **Suffrage or Safety: What Would Annabelle Grant Want?** '. He glanced at it now, anything to distract himself from the spectacle of Mosley starting in on the baked beans. It started with a rather hysterical description of the Annabelle Grant case, the now infamous disappearance of the Scottish girl.

_Annabelle Elizabeth Grant, Omega, 19 years of age, lay in her childhood bed at in Scone Palace on the night of April the Forth of 1929. Her mother, Elizabeth Grant, Omega, Vicountess of Stormont looked in on her daughter at nine o'clock at night. Her precious daughter, home for the school holidays, was peacefully slumbering. How could the Vicountess know that she would be the last to see her precious child. When morning came her maid found the bed empty, and Annabelle Grant snatched away from her family._

_If Annabelle Grant could be taken from under the nose of her Alpha brother, Viscount Patrick Grant, how can our own Omega daughters ever be safe? How can we let them out in the streets to be shoved and manhandled by the crowds that face and surround them, even think of letting them vote. Dear reader do not think that I am too dismissive. These hot-headed young Omegas demanding that they be allowed to vote are well-intentioned I'm sure but how in good conscious could any mother, any Alpha, even consider letting their children fly in the face of all biology. These girls and boys who go out in the streets to tussle with Alpha police officers risk sending themselves into Heat, sending our good boys in uniform into Rut..._

Tommy folded the paper back up. The writer of the column, Lady Marjorie Winderfield was a well known anti-suffragette activist. He'd seen her speak once before parliament and found her just as hysterical in person as she was on the page.

The hue and cry that had risen up over the girl's kidnapping had been predictable: a call for the return to traditional values. The swell of poisonous nostalgia for a theoretical time when Alphas had been Alphas and Omegas had been Omegas had already been rising, but the Grant case was a unique crystallization of it. An Omega of the aristocratic class taken for unknown reasons from her family felt unthinkable and destabilizing for the men and women of power. Mosley had of course made a rousing speech about the importance of keeping young girls safe in their beds. Tommy would have rather re-lived the time he'd made the ill-informed decision to serve him caviar than watch the speech again.

When Mosley had finished eating, they parted ways, Tommy making some excuse to return to his office in the House of Commons.

It was a weekend day and the building was mostly deserted, Tommy's own offices deserted of the few girls he usually employed. He let himself in and went to sit at his desk. He lit a cigarette and poured himself a little hair of the dog that bit him.

He leaned his head back and closed his eyes for a moment, trying to focus on anything but the pounding in his head. When he opened his eyes again he wondered if he'd slept for a moment for he hadn't heard Polly Gray come in.

“You look like hell.”

“So I keep hearing.”

His aunt lit a cigarette. “When was the last time you had a good fuck?”

Tommy picked up his forgotten cigarette, examined the remnants, crushed it out and lit another. “There was a time, I recall, where you used to lecture me for going to whores, Poll.”

“Well that was before I found out what you do with yourself when there's no girl to stick your dick into. You'll kill yourself with drink, eh?”

“You're one to talk.”

“I keep my vices balanced. Not too much of any one thing.”

He hadn't told Polly about the vision of Grace. There was no way to explain how, before the specter had turned menacing, he had indulged himself. The whores he'd seen in those days... it had been so easy to let the familiar features of his wife slip over them, to hear his name on her breath again. He had forgotten what it was like to want someone in more than just the satiation of a biologic function, forgotten what it was to let his orgasm wash over him, wash him and his fears out like some great cleansing tide.

There had been no question of going back to the sterile, mechanical business of fucking a woman he paid by the half hour. And no question at all of risking the return of the phantom-Grace.

Instead he snorted, “you're a wealth of good advice as always. But you haven't come just to lecture me, I hope.”

Polly shook her head.

“There's trouble brewing, with those bastards from Scotland, and the Boswells too. Micheal is managing for now because the money is so good he's been able to pay them off. But he doesn't understand outlaws. Doesn't understand that you can't pay a wolf not to eat you.”

He widened his eyes at her. “And Pol? I'm strictly political now, remember?”

“He'll need you to deal with the Boswells Tommy, even if he doesn't know it yet. He's never been to war, so I'm not even sure he'll recognize when this one starts.”

“If Micheal wants my help, he'll need to ask for it himself. Not send his mother to do his begging for him.”

“He's too proud for that, and you know it.”

Tommy looked out the window. “Maybe I'm too proud for it too.”

“No. You're not. You've never been to proud to do what needs to be done. That's the difference between you and Micheal, isn't it. He never crawled through the mud in France, doesn't know what it's like.”

“I'll send Arthur up to advise him, if you like. But parliament isn't out of session for another month.”

His aunt snorted. “Arthur might be a mad enough dog to keep them at bay, until your blood parliament is over. But you'll have to come eventually Tommy, I'm telling you it's a matter of time.”

“I hate it when you talk like that, I really do.”

“Like what?”

“Like a fucking gypsy queen. Like a fucking fortune teller.”

His aunt smiled. “It's what I am, isn't it?”

Tommy was surprised to find he still felt at home on the banks of the cut at Charlie Strong's scrapyard near midnight, watching his men unload the boats. He wondered if he had been so easy to convince because part of him missed this. He wouldn't have thought it would be possible for anyone to be sentimental about the smell of the Cut, late hours out under the moon, the monotonous work of unloading the narrow boats, much less himself. And yet.. he took a drag on his cigarette and glanced up at the open sky. A clear night though no stars were visible in the bright lights of Birmingham, just a sliver of a moon out as well.

So far there had been nothing unexpected: nothing but pounds and pounds of the Chinese opium and coal.

“This last crate is light as a feather Tom.” Charlie remarked as he and Curly hoisted it from the boat. “What do you suppose is in it?”

“Haven't got a fucking clue.” Tommy replied. “Only one way to find out though, pass the jimmy will you Curly.”

Curly passed him the metal file and hammer and Tommy wedged open the box. It fell open easily and as Charlie had said at first it appeared empty. It was almost tall enough that Tommy could stand. He ducked down only a little as he stepped in, hoisting up the lantern to peer into the depths. As he did he took a deep breath. He never knew which of his senses registered what was happening first but there were two simultaneous and instant pieces of information that he knew. The first was that he was profoundly fucked. The second was that the girl who was lying on the floor of the crate, hands and ankles bound, was surely Annabelle Grant.

It took him only a second more, another ill-advised deep breath, to realize that she was in Heat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well as ever you guys, just pure, unmitigated, smutty trash from yours truly. This time the twist is... I'm giving it to you from the very first chapter! Seriously though, give me season 6 over here already, I'm DYING.
> 
> My goals for this fic are as follows:  
> 1) take the whole dommy tommy shit to like... a whole new level  
> 2) stay true to the characters and particularly their voices. If dialogue sticks out to you as awkward/untrue or, even better, very true and something that really gets you into the moment please, please, please, let me know  
> 3) slightly better grammar than Obeissance, just slightly though. I'm still warming up to like... comas EVERYWHERE they're indicated. But if you tell me specific examples you find egregious, I will mend my ways.  
> 4) A/O world building. I wanna make up a bunch of weird shit and rituals that Alphas and Omegas in this world think/perform/do to each other. IDK why but like... I do
> 
> Sound like fun?


	2. Chapter 2

Tommy's blood exploded with the sensation of her.

He had never smelled anything like her before. Not since... not since Grace had anything smelled so delectable. It was light-- not thick or cloying like some Omega scents were-- all sunshine and youth, fresh and fertile. And yet it was warm, like hot honey and whiskey combined in a heady, wet and potent mixture. It seemed to pour over his tongue, inviting to imagine how her slick might taste, how her gland might taste, how her fucking blood might taste. That thought went straight to his cock and he could feel himself begin to harden, even the knot at the base of his cock throbbed. _Claim. Fuck. Mate._ It was rare for an Alpha to knot outside of Rut. The biologic intention of the sphere of flesh at the base of his cock was to increase the probability of getting the Omega pregnant by making her unable to slide off the Alpha's cock. But usually it only swelled during Heat or Rut, when fertility for both designations. But Christ she smelled so fucking good. _Tie her. Fucking tie her on your cock._

“ **Charlie, bring the car around.** ” He made himself step back out of the crate, managing only just not to shout the words.

“What the fuck...” Charlie began to protest the tone Tommy had used. The Alpha command voice was somewhat impolite to use on another Alpha, particularly one older than himself and one he considered family. The only other time he'd ever used it on Charlie was when he'd told him that he was going to spin Aberama Gold for his yard. Out of extenuating circumstances it was unnecessary, aggressive.

Charlie took a step forward though, looking as though he might bare his teeth to Tommy for the offense, but in gearing up for the confrontation he took a deep breath through his nose. Tommy watched the other man's pupils dilate and his attention shift. He turned his head toward the crate and took another sniff. “What is in there Tom?” He asked.

“Nothing good.”

“It smells fucking good.”

“That's going to be the problem though isn't it, eh?” It wasn't a real question. “Bring the car around and breath through your mouth. We've got to get her to Ada's before...”

He didn't finish the thought. _Before I put my teeth into the nape of her neck, push up her skirt and fuck her where she lays. Before I loose control completely. Before I open her Mating gland and claim her for good..._

Charlie's jaw clenched. “Who...” He began.

“ **The** **car! Charlie!** ” This time the tone of command went unprotested. Charlie turned slowly and went back around the yard to where Tommy had parked his Roll's Royce.

He struggled to take his own advice on breathing through his mouth as he stepped back into the crate. Fuck but the scent of her was overwhelming in the confined space and he wanted more.

She lay on her side, facing the open end of the crate. Her ankles were bound together as were her slender wrists, which were prostrate before her. She'd clearly been given a sedative of some kind as she hadn't stirred, even with all the shouting. Her hair was unfashionably long but beautiful, and despite the dust and dirt, clearly well kept: chestnut locks that spread over her face as a screen. She was dressed in what must have been the nightgown she'd been taken in, a little sheaf of blue silk with a lacy, deep decolletage. Though it was a warm summer night she'd taken chill from the canal water and drafty crate. Though the thin screen of silk he could see the points of her nipples, lush and tempting.

He tried to think if he'd even seen a picture of her in the paper but if he had, he didn't remember it. The image of her now, as she was, was something he knew he would take to his grave.

He should have let Curly do this part, he knew he should. As the Beta would be entirely unaffected by her smell, he was the logical choice to handle her and yet... he couldn't stand the thought of another man touching her. Not even a Beta. Not even Curly.

He knelt and put one arm beneath her knees, the other beneath her shoulders and lifted her easily to his chest. She was tiny, even for an Omega, gamine limbs with the pleasing, supple muscles of adolescence still lingering. _Tight. She'll be a tight fit. She'll have to really want your knot to take it and even if she's sopping, she'll wail when it swells..._ he pushed the thought away. The hair fell back from her face and he fought not to groan at the sight of her pink lips, parted slightly in slumber. Her eyes fluttered open as he lifted her, enormous and surprisingly blue given her dark hair.

Her gaze met his. “Miss Grant you're alright...” He began but stopped as she inhaled deeply, pupils dilating until her eyes were almost black. Just a thin rim of blue around the edge, a reminder of the humanity beneath the Heat. The scent of her swelled like a blistering heat rising off a fire, enveloping him and bringing him sharply to a halt.

She reached for him with her bound hands, reaching for the scent gland on the side of his neck. “Alpha... oh please Alpha...” She moaned as he caught her hands and brought them back down. _Fuck._ The girl was too far gone in her Heat already. “Please Alpha... please let me... scent me Alpha, please...”

He made himself take another step out of the crate, into the open air where the smell of her could be diluted somewhat by the smell of smelting and the river. Fucking hell, he was going to thrash Oswald Mosley the next time he saw him, politics and Winston Churchill be damned. He held the writhing girl still in his arms and was glad to see the Rolls coming around the edge of the building.

“Curly, open the back door for me.” He said as Charlie pulled to a stop.

He put the protesting girl into the back seat and got in after her. “Charlie, take us to Ada's and make it fucking quick as you can.”

“Jesus Tommy is that the girl from the paper? That Scottish dutchess what got herself kidnapped?” Charlie asked as he turned the car. He must have caught sight of the girls face at last.

“She's a Vicountess I think. But yes, this is Annabelle Grant.” Tommy replied through gritted teeth.

They were speaking loudly over the sound of the Vicountess, still moaning in his arms, reaching for him and begging him to claim her.

“What the fuck is she doing in that crate then?”

_She's a present to me, from Oswald Fucking Mosley._ He didn't say it aloud though. He needed to have time, and fucking space away from the girl's scent, enough to figure out what in the world Mosley thought he was playing at. Clearly he had intended Tommy to mate and claim the girl. That was obvious. But to what end and purpose that served him, that required more thought.

In the meantime the girl writhed against him, pressing her body to his and making a small mewling noise that went straight to his cock. With her hands and legs bound and small as she was it wasn't hard to hold her still against him but the frantic edge to her vocalizations made his jaw clench tight. _Omega distress_. Every part of him roared for him to sooth her, calm and gentle her before she hurt herself struggling against him and the bonds. Fucking hell.

Knowing that it was going to make the next few days quite a bit worse for him, he pulled the girl into his lap. He put her spine against the broad expanse of his chest and split her thighs with a knee. He knew she could feel his cock pressed against the cleft of the soft swell of her buttock but with any luck the sedative and the Heat together would make this no more than a vague memory for her. He put one arm around her waist, letting her feel the strength of it, and pressed his nose against the scent gland at the base of her neck. The instinctive growl he let out at the smell of her rumbled through his chest and against her own, making her shiver and slacken in his arms. He could smell the gush of slick that dripped down her leg in response. The little mewling noises faded and she arched, angling herself so that if it weren't for his pants he could have slipped into her slick-drenched tunnel.

“Present for me, Omega.” He snarled. “Show your Alpha you take his scent.” It was a meaningless command, the girl had tilted her neck into a presentation pose the moment he'd pulled her onto her lap. His words only made her preen, arching a little bit more against him, and another gush of slick trickled out of her.

With one hand he held her wrists, keeping her still, the other went to her breast. Through the thin blue silk he rolled the bud of her nipple in his fingers, making her gasp and arch. He slid a hand down her slim waist to her thigh, pulling her wider. She arched her back, hoping for more contact.

“Jesus Tommy will you fucking scent her already.” Charlie growled from the front seat. Tommy could see that his knuckles were white on the steering wheel.

Tommy bent his head and ran his tongue over her collarbone. Her skin alone tasted heavenly but then his lips and tongue met the thin, pulsing skin of her gland and pleasure as he hadn't felt in years surged through him. The knot at the base of his cock throbbed and white light seemed to fill his vision. He felt his head spin, a whirling sensation of the world sliding away, like an orgasm or being drunk on the very best whiskey. Her smell was delectable but nothing compared to the taste of her. He let out a sound so feral and profound it shocked even him. He could smell that her slick was coming in waves now, soaking through the thin silk onto his pants. She arched, pressing her ass back against him as if straining to sink down onto his knot, prevented only by the cloth between them.

He took the hand from her breast and curled it into her long hair, pulling her head brutally to the side to bare the other creamy expanse of skin. He ran his tongue from the corner of her ear to her clavicle and back again, bathing her in his scent. Then pulled her head to the other side to do the same.

The pheromones in his saliva mingled with hers at the gland, sinking through the thin flesh into her bloodstream and she went limp in his arms, no longer desperately writhing against him but instead collapsing against his chest in a boneless heap. He pressed his teeth gently to the skin, not hard enough to pierce it, but enough that the girl jerked in his arms, as if he'd touched a live wire to her.

He tilted her head against his shoulder, feeling her body go slack again. Her eyes closed again. Without the stimulus of having an Alpha close who hadn't claimed her, the sedative she'd been given overcame her again. Or perhaps it was the sedating effects of his pheromones. Grace had always slept deeply for half a day or more after the first time he mated her when she was in Heat, her body needing the time to prepare. Charlie's hands too relaxed on the wheel. With Tommy's scent on her the other Alpha would not find hers underneath as appealing, thinking she had already been claimed for this Heat. It was same reason the girl had settled, expecting that, as he'd given her his scent, it would only be a matter of time before he would knot and claim her.

Tommy felt himself relax a bit as she did. He let his fingers loosen slightly in her hair. The smell of him on her soothed his Alpha in the knowledge that it would give her some protection from being claimed this Heat by another. In the throws of it she might be able to convince another to take her, pretty and lush as she was, but it would be difficult for another to scent over his prior claim. He was, after all, a fairly potent Alpha and his pheromones would be bitter indeed to anyone who thought to claim what he had marked as his. A bite, even to one of her lesser glands, would have been better of course. But he didn't think she would appreciate that, once she'd recovered her senses.

He allowed himself the indulgence of worrying her gland a bit with his tongue. Feeling a bit guilty for allowing himself he let his fingers brush over her Mating gland, concealed beneath the silk just at the base of her neck. He could tell from her smell that no Alpha had bitten her there, that she was unclaimed, but he wanted to feel the smooth, unmarred skin under his fingers. Assure himself that she could be his. How would it be to press her down into a presentation posture, ass arched to give him the best angle to penetrate her and bite down on that virgin gland as she came on his knot? He groaned at the mental image.

Even Grace had never let him bite her there. There had been too much history between them by they'd been married for her to feel comfortable. And then she'd been taken from him so soon after there had been no time to earn her trust again.

He turned the girl in his lap's head again and went back to bathing her in his scent.

He was going to pay for the decision to scent mark her for the next few days. If he was very,very lucky it wouldn't send him into Rut but even the act of doing it he knew would make his senses heightened, his libido wild for a while. As for her the pheromones in his saliva might not do anything to blunt the effects of the Heat but at least it would offer her a little bit of safety.

The title of that stupid article came back to him suddenly ' **Safety or Suffrage: What Would Annabelle Grant Want?** ' Well perhaps he'd ask her once her Heat had faded. Safety, if she had any sense. The girl had, after all been kidnapped, thrown in a a crate and shipped down the Cut to be raped.

Charlie pulled the car to a stop at the curb of the Polly's old Birmingham house and opened the door for Tommy. The girl nuzzled against his chest as he picked her up and carried her into the house, trying to burrow into the crook of his arm through the expensive fabric of his suit.

“Ada! Ada! Wake up!” He shouted up the stairs.

“I am fucking up.” Ada's voice came from the parlor door. She'd come into the entrance hall with a glass of whiskey in one hand. When she saw Tommy standing there with the girl in his arms the glass slid from her hand, shattering on the tiles. “Jesus! Fuck! What the fuck is that!”

“Annabelle Grant, Ada, the girl from the papers.” He said brusquely.

“I fucking know that! I've seen her photo so damn much in the blood papers I'd recognize it better than me own at this point. I mean why the fuck is she in my house, in your arms, smelling like you're about to Rut the little virgin until she can't walk straight?” Ada's voice was low and harsh.

“Jesus, why don't you pour me a drink first, eh? Before all the screaming?” He said, stepping into the parlor over the smashed glass and putting the unconscious girl down on the couch.

As the only Omega born to his parents, Ada was the natural choice for who he'd come to. He might have gone to Polly. Given that she preferred fellow Alphas always, men usually, she wouldn't feel the Heat in the same way he would. But he didn't need Polly's judgment just then. Ada had always been more understanding, when it came to Tommy and women.

Ada went to the sideboard and made rather a show of making them each a fresh whiskey, rattling the ice in the glasses so much in her anger he thought she might break another. “Alright here's your fucking drink, now where are my fucking answers.” Ada said, slamming it into his hand.

He took a long sip, feeling the familiar feeling of the warm liquid slide down his throat. He fished his cigarettes from his breast pocket and lit one, offered it to his sister, then lit another for himself. “Mosley sent her to me.” He said finally.

Ada's eyes narrowed. “What do you mean he sent her to you?”

“She was in a fucking crate. The Billy Boys sent her down the Cut with the the goddamn Chinese opium.” He put the cigarette to his lips to keep his hands from shaking in rage at the thought of Jimmy McCavern and his lot touching her. “They must have taken her a week ago and sent her down the Cut just as she was starting to go into Heat.”

“Fucking bastards!” Ada snarled.

“Aye.” Tommy agreed. “They'll need to be taught a lesson.”

She nodded. “You said Mosley sent her though? How do you know that?”

“He asked me to meet the shipment tonight myself. He must have known McCavern was sending her tonight. And clearly he's the one who ordered her to be taken in the first place.”

“Why though?” She asked. “Why send you to get her?”

Tommy took a sip of his whiskey, swallowing down the burning liquid, before he could get the words out. “They must have mistimed her Heat.”

“What do you mean?”

“They must have thought she would be at the peak of it when I opened the crate.”

Ada's brow furrowed for a moment as she struggled to catch his meaning. It wasn't a question of slow wits, she was as sharp as he was, but it took her a moment to be able to imagine what they had intended to happen. “Jesus fucking Christ Tommy.” She said, blowing out a long breath. “Mosley wanted you to rape this girl in a bloody crate on the banks of the Cut? That's fucking evil.”

Tommy swallowed. “Yes, it is.”

She shook her head. “But why?”

He took a drag on her cigarette. “I don't know.”

He wished he'd read that fucking article, read a little bit more about the case. He didn't know much more about the girl except her name and that she was an Omega and Scottish Vicountess. It was possible that Mosley had wanted to incriminate him, make it seem as if Tommy had taken the girl himself. But it was a strange and elaborate plan if that was his only aim. It wouldn't be hard to find evidence of criminal activity that Tommy had actually committed if he only wanted to get him in trouble wit h the law. No that would be too indirect, even for Oswald Mosley. But was his intention to harm the girl or to harm Tommy? Who was the victim and who was the innocent bystander.

“There'll be time enough to puzzle that out later.” He said. “For now I need you to take her to Arrow house until her Heat is over. I'll figure out what to do with her after that in the meantime.”

“Alright. I'll telegraph ahead to let them know were coming and have Frances dismiss any Alphas on staff for the time being.”

Tommy drained his whiskey and looked down at the girl lying on the couch, her hair spread out behind her like a flag. He took a moment to master himself before speaking again. “And Ada... she'll need to be Heat-fasted.”

Her head shot up at that. “What? Tommy you can't mean.... That's barbaric!”

He shook his head. “It's no worse than what her parents have done to her before. They may have suppressed all but the first of her Heats but girls of her class... that is she'll need to be returned to her family _virgo intacta_ as it were.”

“How do you know she's been Heat-fasted?”

“Fucking smell her Ada.”

Tommy had rubbed shoulders enough with the upper class in parliament to know what he was saying was true. It was easy enough to smell that she was a virgin, Unlike girls of his social class generally went through a few Heats before finding the Alpha they wanted to settle down with, girls of the upper class were expected to go to their Alphas, not just never having had another Alpha help them through their Hat, but with their virgin blood still on them. Usually they were kept on suppressants. If they were unlucky enough to have break through Heats, they were sent to convents where the nuns tied them hand and foot to keep them from touching or defiling themselves.

She inhaled deeply, then grimaced. “You want me to tie this girl to the fucking bed for her Heat so she doesn't break her own hymen on her fingers, or anything else she can get her hands on?”

To _his_ bed. If Ada had any sense at all she'd tie the girl to _his_ bed. The scent of him would be enough to calm her a bit, at least at first. The image of her keening and willing and _tied up_ on his bed was enough to make him rock hard. God but he felt a right bastard.

“Yes.” He sighed. “There's some opium in my desk at Arrow House. Frances will know how to find it. Mix it with some whiskey and pour it down the girls throat if she looks to be getting close to hurting herself. Can't return her with bruises or torn skin either.”

“I am not going to fucking drug her, that's fucking insane.”

“What do you think she'd want, eh, Ada?”

“What do you mean?”

“She's been missing for a fucking week. If you'd asked me yesterday to give odds on how she'd be found, it would be two-to-one dead, even odds something even worse. There are going to be a lot of fucking questions about where she's been when she turns back up, eh?”

“I don't see what that has to do with...”

“If she's to have any chance of attaching herself to the kind of Alpha her family no doubt expects from her, there will need to be no question of her... chastity, when this is over.”

“Thomas Shelby, who are you to speak of chastity? When did you ever give a damn about it?”  
“I don't.”

It was a lie, but the truth was hardly something he needed to explore to his sister. God help him he would have given anything to take her to Arrow House himself, tie her to the bed and sink his teeth into that untouched cunt. The blood of an Omega's maidenhead was an almost mystical thing for an Alpha, to be the first to open her womanhood. The thought was enough to make him feel as though his veins were aflame.

“It's her parents, her future husband... it's her who will be bothered about her purity.”

Ada considered that for a moment before finally nodding her assent. “And what of Mosley then? What are you going to tell him?”

“I haven't worked out what I intend to _say_ , exactly.”

Oswald Mosley stood as Tommy entered his office. “Thomas.” He said by way of greeting.

“Oswald.” Tommy returned, not breaking his stride, nor waiting for the door to close behind him as he crossed the room, passed the desk and allowed himself to let fly an unpulled blow. His knuckles connected with a satisfying crunch against Mosley's jaw, snapping the smaller Alpha's head back and sending him reeling back so he had to throw out a hand to catch himself on the chair and wall behind him.

Tommy stood over the other man, rolling his hand to get the feeling back into it as he gave Mosley a moment to process what had just happened. He straightened up slowly, one hand going to the tender flesh on his chin where already the flesh was beginning to puff up and swell. He'd have a frightful bruise by the afternoon. Then he pressed his lips together and drew out a handkerchief.

“I know that I am overly tolerant of your bad manners given the... rough upbringing you experiences Thomas but really, is that any way to say thank you for such a generous gift?” He drew in a deep breath, scenting Tommy. His eyes widened as he caught only the faint smell of Annabelle Grant on him, then his mouth formed into a little brittle smile. “Ah well, that explains it. A frustrated Rut can make barbarians of us all.”

Tommy let out a humorless bark of a laugh and let himself drop into the chair on the opposite side of the desk. “If you ever give me a gift like that again Oswald, it will be more than a punch as your thanks.

“Tell McCavern that I'm going to find the men of his who obeyed this order and cut their fucking throats open. I've already asked the men who took their cargo for the names and descriptions of the men that loaded that crate and I've got enough people in Glasgow to find them easily enough.” He took his cigarettes out of his vest pocket and lit one. “He can send their bodies down the Cut to Charlie's yard if he wants to save me the trouble, and them a bit of pain.”

Mosley sat himself as well, drawing out a handkerchief and pressing it to his chin. “Since you clearly aren't thinking clearly today I am going to pretend that I didn't hear that Thomas.” He drawled. “I am not your messenger, nor do I concern myself with the... less scrupulous side of your business. You know that.”

Tommy took a drag on his cigarette. “Forgive me Oswald if I thought that had changed, given the rape you attempted to arrange last night.”

Mosley scoffed. “Rape? What a dramatic word. I'm sure the little darling would have been begging you for your knot, and your bite if only you would have let yourself satisfy her.” He looked down, examining his shirt and sighed when he found a bit of blood had dripped down onto his white collar. “What a shame. I shall have to go home and change, I can't take meetings like this.” He dabbed at the drop a little bit with his handkerchief, then seemed to refocus himself on the conversation at hand. “Besides,” he said, almost as an afterthought. “It would have been perfectly legal if only you had Bonded her, as you bloody well should have.”

Tommy frowned but said nothing.

Mosley played his fingers along the desk for a moment but when Tommy said nothing, went on. “Consider for a moment what you have now in your possession: a virgin Omega, daughter of the Scottish aristocracy, known to be kidnapped and being searched for most diligently by Scotland Yard.

“Now, allow yourself to imagine what would have happened if you had done what I wanted you to. You would be knot-deep in a sweet little virgin cunt the likes of which you've never tasted before, and all but married to a charming little blue-blooded ingenue who is far too good for you socially and politically.

“You would inherit a small estate that will go to her when her mother dies, Scone Castle itself if her brother would to die without an heir. And in the meantime you would have a nineteen-year-old to suck your knot whenever you like.”

“Hard to enjoy such things, rotting in some Scottish gaol for kidnapping and rape.” Tommy said calmly. “Her brother is hardly likely to thanks me, given, as you said, I can't have been the husband he envisioned for her.”

“If you'd Claimed her, married her, it wouldn't be rape. There would be nothing he could do. Besides, locking you up would only further damage her reputation and she could never marry again with your bite on her. No, no, he would accept whatever story you wanted to tell about how you found and rescued her before being overcome by her Heat.” Mosley said. “People are always astoundingly willing to believe a story when it suits their interest to do so.”

It did not surprise Tommy that Mosley hadn't even considered what the girl herself might remember or say when her Heat receded. Even if it were only a vague memory it did not seem to have occurred to him that she might speak up or recount what had happened to her, if he had shown less restraint. Tommy had met Alphas like this before: the ones who saw an Omega in Heat and forgot that there was anything more to them then that. Her voice was clearly not one he expected to hear, nor expected others to believe.

“We know each other well enough Oswald that you cannot expect me to believe that you did this as a favor to me.” Tommy said finally.

“No. Not entirely, truth be told.” He admitted. “Her brother is a rather prominent member of the Scottish Labor party, one of the real bastions of the group. As thanks for the gift of his sister, I'll expect you to recruit him to our cause. He will be most valuable to the coalition going forward.”

“You think he'll thank me, for raping his sister?”   
“Not for raping her, but redeeming her.”

“Redeeming?”

“From raising her up from a kidnapped victim, to the wife and Claimed Omega of a prominent member of an up-and-coming party in parliament. Once he sees the political power you'll have in the new order, he'll be delighted to have you linked to his family.”

Thomas said nothing to that.

“Besides, you need a mate, a proper one: something with pure blood to dilute out the gypsy taint.” Mosley smiled. “It's not to late you know. I may have mistimed her Heat but it will last for days. I can smell the brewing Rut it's stirring up in you as well. Each day that passes, she'll only beg you all the more prettily...”

Tommy bared his teeth at that, hand twitching to hit Mosley again. “I'll not fucking rape the girl, Oswald.”

Mosley let out an annoyed breath at that. “There's that dramatic word again, what rubbish. But if you won't do it for any sensible reason, consider what the fate of the Omega herself. She's been missing for a week now. No one in the world will believe that she is unclaimed when she is found. At best if you do not claim her, it will be assumed that some unnamed assailant took her and Marked her before you found her. More likely though people will whisper that she ran off with a lover who, once he'd had what he wanted from her, left her for you to find. Neither will make for an appealing future for her.”

Mosley let the thought hang between them for a moment before continuing.

“Or you can Bond the girl and save her reputation. No one will think that you would do so if you hadn't found her... untouched. Being the Omega of a MP is perhaps a little bit less than she might have expected, but respectable to say the least. The best she could have hoped for, once she was taken. And as I said, your stock is only rising.”

Tommy snorted. Fuck her for her own good, of course Mosley would come up with that as a rational. Alphas had been saying that since the dawn of time. That Omegas needed their help to get through Heat, that they needed to be held down and knotted, fucked and tied on an Alpha cock to keep them calm and happy.

“If you don't marry her Shelby, no one else will.”

Tommy stood. “Right, then.”

“If you have any pity for her at all, you'll take her before she regains her senses. The girl will be terrified of you in her right mind. But I'm sure she'll get used to a little... rough handling, if it's introduced to her in the proper mind frame.”

He didn't turn to look back at the other man as he crossed to the door and opened it. “Put some ice on that cheek Mosley, before it swells.”

The meeting with Churchill had hardly gone better, though at least no punches had been thrown.

“Let me get this straight, the Home Office is asking you to fuck the girl after all? Let Mosley think he's gotten what he wants only this time on the orders of Winston Fucking Churchill?” Polly's voice was shrill and edged with a laugh. “And just when I thought your life couldn't get any more bizzare, Thomas. God I'd give anything for you to let me do your tea leaves, probably set fire to the cup at this rate.”

“If Mosley think that he's gotten what he wants then her brother will be an excellent ally in bringing down the entire BUF.” He rubbed a hand over his face. He'd gotten so little sleep the night before and drunk far too much whiskey to allow himself to get even that. “But I'm not going to do it Poll. It's insane, and she'd never agree to it.”

“Why not? You can't know until you've asked her.” His Aunt said. “Besides, plenty of women have gone to bed with you, Thomas, who shouldn't have. What makes this one any different?”

“She's the daughter of a Scottish Lairde for one, a virgin for another. She's been kidnapped and probably going to be shell shocked. I'll be surprised if she bloody speaks when she wakes up. But you're more than willing to ask her when she does if you've taken a shine to the idea.”

He began shuffling papers on his desk, hoping Poll would get the hint that the conversation was over. But it had been a marginal hope at best.

Polly took a drag on her cigarette. “You better fucking believe I will Thomas. I agree that it's unusual, but these are unusual times.”

He looked up from where he had been trying to find a contract renewal with some lamp lighters union and lit a cigarette himself. As ever it was useless to try to get Poll off a subject once she'd sunk her teeth in.

Tommy laughed sarcastically. “Oh don't give me that, Polly. Unusual is a onion what grows the size of a cabbage or a bear that can ride a bicycle. Asking a nineteen-year-old virgin to take my knot for King and country is a bit more than fucking _unusual_.”

“At nineteen Thomas you'd taken more than one bullet for the King.” She said sharply “A Knot? A bite? What is that compared to a bloody bullet?”

“That is not the same thing Polly, and you bloody well know it.”

“It's not. You're not likely to kill her just by fucking her.”

“Right. That isn't what I meant and you know it.”

“What does Ada say about it?”

“I haven't asked Ada.”

“Why not?”

“Because I'm not planning to ask the girl.”

“You know what I think she'd say about it?” Polly didn't wait for his response. “I think she'd say that the girl deserves a chance to be asked.”

Tommy looked up, frowning. “What do you mean?”

“You're assuming she'll say no because she won't want to do something so dangerous. But why shouldn't she? You're outraged that Mosley would put her to danger. What makes you think she'd feel any less strongly? Wouldn't want to do whatever she could to bring him down?”

Tommy tapped his cigarette to shake loose the ash on the end of it. “I can't risk another accident. Like what happened to Grace.”

“Then fucking marry the girl. Let me ask you something Thomas: does Oswald Mosley seem to you to be the kind of man who, once frustrated, would simply give up without trying again, without some kind of retribution.”

His brow wrinkled. “You think he'd try to take her again?”

“I don't think that he'll give up his intention to recruit her brother.” She said. “And he's proven himself cavalier enough with her life once. Whose to say he wouldn't try to play that pretty pawn in another gambit?”

He tapped his lighter on the desk, considering. “He said something unusual about her the other day, when I confronted him in his office. Something about her blood, about it's purity. Said I should be grateful he was offering her to me.”

“Sounds like he's taken an interest.”

“I can tell the H.O. to pass a message to her brother that she'll need to be a little bit more closely watched for the foreseeable future.”

Polly shook her head. “If she marries you, if he thinks you've Mated her, it will give her the only kind of protection one can have from a man like Mosley: it will make her useless to him.”

Polly stood and went to the door.

With her fingers on the handle she turned back to the room. “She deserves to be asked what she wants, at least.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uhhhhg you guys I'm super nervous about this chapter. This story is so RIDICULOUS and I know it but I couldn't write it any other way. I had this image in my head of Alpha Tommy finding a Omega girl tied up in a crate on one of the boats and when I set the characters loose to do what they would, this is what they did! Please, please, please tell me I'm not fucking crazy for thinking what's happening is kinda hot? Surely I'm not alone in the universe... right????? Send me signs of other, similar life on this planet! 
> 
> Same as before, I really love it most when you tell me specific dialogue you like or bits of world building that got you into it. And don't worry, I already mortify myself as a feminist so no need to scold me. I can't help what gets me hot :D But I will say this: it's import to me to portray these people as all fully, realized adults with their own agency. For me the idea of A/B/O is similar to being a woman with a high libido and whose into weird stuff. Not a problem unto itself but it gets real fucked up real fast when people can't distinguish between what you do in the bedroom and what you do outside of it. I think this is a dangerous chapter because we have yet to meet Annabelle outside of her Heat but in future chapters I hope (and I hope you will keep me honest with this) to portray her as a woman who thinks and acts for herself. She's just a slave to her baser instincts sometimes and she just wants Tommy to bend her over and not hold back. Who among us could cast the first stone, amiright? /endrant
> 
> But also... do you or do you not want to see my pinterest mood board for this fic? Because I made one.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: Listen, the concept of virginity and hymens is like, pretty iffy in the real world. Basically, a hymen is a little remnant of a septum that forms embryologically and then perforates later to allow the vagina to be a passage instead of a walled off little pocket. Some women feel it stretch of tear during intercourse but most often it's altered by other activities first and even just hormonal changes that occur during puberty. Some women are particularly excellent at perforating septa in their embryologic development and never have one to begin with. I have chosen to ignore all of that in this story. Because I find it hot, okay, because of that and no other reason.

Annabelle Grant woke in the dark, surrounded by a scent that was both familiar and unfamiliar at once. There were aspects of it she could identify—cigarette smoke, whiskey, horses—and some that she could not but that made the muscles between her legs clench and throb. The bed she lay had a similarly dream-like quality of deja-vu: something she remembered only in disjointed flashes from the Heat that had passed. It was enormous--the largest four-poster she'd ever seen, with dark wood panels and horse motifs carved into the posts. Despite the fact that she'd slept in it the crisp, ironed corners of the thick cotton sheets had held. Even if the smell of him surrounding and enveloping her hadn't made it clear, she felt, somehow, she would have known it was _his_ bed.

The Alpha who had scent marked her.

That part she remembered with painful, aching clarity. It had been like being pulled bodily from the murky, disjointed aching want of her Heat and whatever sedative she'd been given, into a moment of sharp, painful reality. He had found her... somewhere, in some deserted place that smelled like water filled with mud and decaying plants and metallurgy and smoke. Some industrial place near a canal, it must have been. Before that she thought she'd been on a boat during the brief moments she had struggled back to consciousness after her kidnappers had taken her. That part she remembered only in flashes, like her Heat.

His eyes, the feeling of her spine against the broad muscle of his chest, the way his hand so easily encircled her wrist, his thigh parting her legs... that had felt painfully immediate. The feel of his teeth against her gland, not a bite but the threat of one, had made her body jerk in frustrated longing. The sharp, blue, piercing gaze had seemed like water she could fall through for hours, a chilly depth that would not buoy her up and contained no bottom.

In the dark her cheeks reddened at the thought of how she had writhed against him, squirming against her bonds and begging him to knot her, claim her, take anything at all. Even in the moment she had felt almost as if she were watching another girl, one who looked and sounded like her but was not her, say and do what she had. Almost as if she was watching a scene in a play, rather than her own reality. His tongue raking over her gland, the feeling of his pheromones entering her blood stream, _the press of his teeth ever so slightly to the thin skin_... that had slammed her back into her body. The moment that he scented her... that Annabelle had felt, even if the rest of the Heat was a blur.

And yet he hadn't knotted her. He hadn't touched her much besides what he needed to gentle her, keep her from hurting herself.

She frowned. She had smelled his arousal on him, felt the press of him against her. Even the pheromones he had transmitted to her when he'd scented her had screamed out his desire. He had wanted to, and he had held back. She had been well far enough gone in her Heat that the law would likely side with him if he'd chosen to take her up on what she'd offered him. The more radical wings of the suffragette movement might have called it rape but no Alpha police officer would have done more than laugh at the claim. Alphas will be Alphas. If she didn't want it, then why would she beg for it.

But really, it must have taken a rather extraordinary amount of self-restraint to overcome his biology.

Even the thought of the power in his arms as he'd held her still on his lap, long fingers tangling in her hair to jerk her head to one side, expose her to him... she felt a gush of slick go down her leg and groaned in ashamed pleasure.

More self-restraint than she had, clearly.

Her body felt terrible. Every muscle ached from where she remembered straining against the ropes that had bound her hand and foot to the bed. The painful agonizing ache of lust that had consumed her for the past few days had died down enough to allow her to regain her senses. But behind it had come an empty, pathetic feeling of longing. She remembered at some point when her temperature had risen to a dangerous height a Beta had helped the Omega who watched her plunge her into a tub of freezing water to cool her off. The Beta woman had come in after the fever of her Heat broke too to bathe her with a cool cloth and change her into the white silk negligee she now wore. She had brushed out Annabelle's hair and braided it into a simple plait, tying the end with a matching white ribbon.

Despite the screaming protest of every part of her, she slid off the bed and padded to the adjoining bathroom she could see through the cracked door. She was surprised to find that a woman had, at least at some period of time, lived in this room. The silver-handled hairbrush, bottle of perfume, makeup and ribbons and hairpins that lay by the right-hand sink did not look particularly recently used. She looked down at the negligee: creamy white silk that fell to her mid thighs with a plunging decolletage of frothy white lace. She raised the silk to her nose but smelled nothing. It hadn't been worn in a while then, if ever, by whatever woman had owned this bathroom.

An ex-lover then. Likely an ex-wife if he kept her things after so much time had passed.

The male instruments, _his_ instruments, which surrounded the right-hand sink, still smelled clearly of him. She fought the very real and unsettling urge to run her fingers over the comb, the aftershave, the shaving kit in a smart leather case.

The girl looking back at Annabelle in the mirror looked tired, pale and thin. She had always been slender with the prototypical long, gamine limbs of her designation. Now she looked genuinely underfed. She'd lost a considerable amount of weight in...however long since she had been at home. _God, when was the last time I ate?_ It must have been days ago at least.

Feeling abashed, she took a washcloth and wet it in the sink, then ran it between her legs, rinsing it and returning until the slick and the smell had gone down the sink. She took the long silk robe that hung on the bathroom door down and wrapped it around her. It was plush and thick. The weight settled like a hand around her shoulders and the smell of him in it gave her a measure of comfort. _Alpha is nearby. You are safe. You are protected._

Auietly she went back into the dark bedroom and went the door. She pushed it open and stepped out into the carpet-lined hallway. She wasn't sure how she knew she was on the second floor, nor how to find the stairs except that all great houses look little the same once you've been in enough of them. She found the stairs and froze at the top of them. His scent had been so strong in the room and from the robe that it had taken her a moment to realize what she had begun to smell the moment the door closed behind her.

_He_ was here, in the house.

She swallowed deep in her throat.

She hesitated only a moment before tilting her nose in the air and following the scent down the stairs and to a large door off the main entrance hall. It must be late at night indeed, for she ran into no servants, but still there was light spilling from under the door.

Heart pounding in her throat but unable to resist, she pushed open the door and slipped quietly inside.

She might have anticipated anything on the other side but the scene that met her was surprisingly banal. He was sitting behind a large desk in front of an enormous bay of windows. At this time of night the curtains were drawn and the room was lit only by a single lamp on his desk. He wore a suit similar to the one she remembered, dark and stylishly cut in a way that emphasized the broad shoulders and lean torso. He'd taken off his jacket and remained in just his vest and shirtsleeves. The way that his sleeve garters bunched the shirt against his powerful arms made her throat dry. He had been looking through some papers (an incongruous pair of gold-rimmed spectacles perched on his nose) but was looking up when she entered. Had he heard her approach? Smelled her even?

She froze, feeling suddenly like a rabbit whose seen a fox through the rushes. _Ridiculous_ , she told herself, _after all it's you who've come to him_. She tried to straighten her shoulders and look a bit less afraid, though she could smell her own scent spiking in fear and knew he surely could as well.

Twin blue orbs fixed her as she stood, like a butterfly pinned to a collector's board. How could eyes be both so penetrating and so impenetrable? It didn't seem fair that, while she was sure that he could see very clearly who she was and what she was thinking, even in the dimness of the room, his own expression gave nothing at all away.

He took off his spectacles and put them into a breast pocket. “Hello, Miss Grant.” His voice was just as she remembered, the power of it belied by his soft, even tone.

“How do you know my name?”

“Your disappearance has been in the papers.”

She almost winced. She wasn't surprised but still... it was a blow.

“Where am I?”

“You're at my home in the countryside in Shropshire: Arrow House. My name is Thomas Shelby.”

“How... how did I get here?” She asked, voice trembling only a little.

“I found you in Birmingham, at a business that is associate with some of my own.” He said evenly. Quite a gracious way to phrase 'you were tied up, mad with Heat and begging me to knot you in the bottom of grubby boat' she felt. “How you got there is a longer story.”

“What is the date Mr. Shelby?”

“The first of May.”

“I've been gone ten days then.”

“Yes.”

He began to stand and she stumbled back, conspicuously tripping against the door in her haste to back away from him. He froze midway to his feet, regarding her as if she might run. When she did not he drew himself, very slowly, to his full height.

“You must be hungry.” He said finally.

“Yes.” She admitted.

“Come, let me give you something to eat.”

He did not advance toward her however, waiting for her reply. “Thank you.” She said softly.

She did an admirable job keeping herself from flinching back from him as he approached, very slowly, and passed her to open the door. He led her down the stairs to a rather cozy kitchen. The fire was banked but the room was still warm and smelled of bread and meat and roasted vegetables from the day. The good, copper-bottomed pans were all neatly cleaned and dried and hung on the walls for the morning.

He took some roasted chicken and milk from the cold box. He stoked the fire and put the kettle on for tea and put some slices of bread on the grill above the fire to heat. He cut her some of the chicken and when he caught her eyes followed his movement said softly, “no need to stand on ceremony I think Miss Grant. You must be very hungry.”

She blushed but immediately took some chicken from the plate in front of her and began to chew it. He had turned away as he spoke and when he turned back and she realized he had intended to hand her a knife and fork, she blushed to the roots of her feet. She and Patrick as children had stolen down to the kitchen after everyone had gone to bed countless times and neither of them had ever fetched silverware. It seemed to contradict the strangeness of the act to eat as one normally did.

He said nothing however and merely put away the cutlery without a word but she almost felt as if his lips had turned up slightly, in a small smile.

He brought the toast and buttered it for her, spreading marmalade and honey over the top and putting them on her plate as soon as she finished with the last one. The marmalade was incredibly good, clearly made at the house itself as the jar bore no label. She ate three slices before she stopped to savor the next. He poured her a glass of milk and a cup of tea, spooning in sugar until she nodded her head for him to stop.

She took the opportunity in the better light to study her host. He was clearly older than she was, old enough to have fought in the Great War, and something about his demeanor made her sure, somehow, that he had. But for all that, he was a strikingly handsome man. His features were much softer than would be expected from his smell, not to mention the rough, dominant way he had handled her. The soft lips and high cheekbones reminded her of a choir boy. So did the wide blue eyes framed with long lashes, at least at a passing glance. She found that when the blue gaze was turned on her she did not feel that they were quite as benign as their color or width might imply. His was the blue of hard, midwinter ice, some wolf's eyes in the snow, rather than blue summer skies.

He was studying her as well. He was careful not to look at her too long or too directly but she could tell that he was tracking her movements very carefully, noting little signs that she wanted more marmalade and less butter on her toast, or another slice of chicken. His scent was changing too, mellowing into something a bit prideful and a bit relaxed at the same time.

_He's enjoying this_ , she realized with a start, _enjoying feeding me_. It shouldn't have come as such a surprise, the Alpha instinct to provide was infamous. And here was one who had denied himself the pleasure of helping her through her Heat. Little wonder that he would find other ways to feel that he had satisfied her, provided for her. The Alpha Kings of the last century had fed their Queens and courtesans by hand and from their own plates when they dined with the court as a display of their ownership. In modern times it was still unusual for an Omega of her class to order her own food at a restaurant if she were dining with her Alpha.

She wondered what he would do if she took the next bite from his fingers. Would he like that? Would she? She shivered at the image and felt something clench deep within her.

Finally though she'd eaten her fill. She waved him off when he offered her another slice of toast. “I'm very full. Thank you very much Mr. Shelby. I was quite hungry.”

“You haven't eaten in a few days I think.”  
“No I don't think I have.”

“What do you remember of what happened to you?”

The question was not polite, but neither did it offend her. Quite the contrary, it had the paradoxical effect of putting her at ease. He had said to her that she needn't stand on ceremony, and clearly intended to observe none himself. It obviated the need for her to try to observe the usual manners, an impossibility in such strange circumstances. She was too tired and confused herself to want to play at the game of guessing what he knew about her, what he thought she knew about her.

“I remember being kidnapped, most of it anyway.” She blushed furiously. “I remember... that is I remember you finding me as well Mr. Shelby.”

He leaned back and fished the cigarettes from his vest, saying nothing. He offered her one but she shook her head.

She could feel her cheeks reddening, as if they were on fire, and her scent spiking despite all that she would wish it not to. But she made herself get the words out, stuttering, stumbling, feeling utterly ridiculous and humiliated. “Thank you... that is thank you for not taking advantage of me.”

He lit the cigarette and took a deep drag. “That is not something for which I require thanks, Miss Grant.”

He had spoken in an even tone, she was sure he had, but something about those words sent a shiver down her spine. It was like his expression. There was no part of his face that she could indicate that was precisely menacing. Taken individually, in fact, his features should have been beautiful. But somehow they added together into a whole that made her think of jaws closing on the nape of her neck, brutality beneath a thin layer of civility.

“You.. that is you did not plan my kidnapping, I assume? Given... given that you did not...” She blushed again at the question. How naive could she be, asking this man if he kidnapped her? If he had he was hardly likely to admit to it now but she had little enough information about what had happened.

“No, I did not.”

“But you know who did?”

He took a moment to consider his answer. “This is perhaps a discussion better left for the morning. You're tired, you've been through quite an ordeal this week and there is plenty of time to discuss it once you've recovered a bit more.”

She took a sip of her tea. Her brother would have said the same thing, her father too when he was alive. She would have been packed off to bed after her milk and tea and when morning came she'd get an explanation deemed fitting for a girl, and Omega. _Best not to trouble her with it. For her own good, not to worry about it._

She thought of the night that two army officers had come to the steps of Castle Scone with a letter that had made her mother collapse to the floor of the foyer. She and Patrick, both fourteen, had been at the top of the stairs. They had both run down the stairs, Annabelle to comfort her mother, Patrick to take the letter from the man's hands. “What is it Patty?” She'd asked, looking up at him.

His knuckles had been white and he'd been pale and trembling as he'd said, “Annabelle, I think it's time for you to go to bed.”

“But Patty...” She'd began to protest.

“ **Annabelle, go to bed**.” It was the first time he'd ever used his Command voice on her. She'd been so startled that she'd started crying immediately.

Mary, her maid, had come and taken her by the hand to lead her back up the stairs to her room and tuck her into bed. At the time she'd been crying because she thought Patrick was mad at her, because she lacked the imagination and experience to expect something much worse.

This Alpha though... he didn't look at her like she was a little girl.

She met his eyes deliberately, fighting back the sense of vertigo that infinite blue held, and her Omega instinct to look demurely down. “I've slept enough Mr. Shelby. I want to know what happened to me.”

He took another drag on his cigarette and considered her for a long moment. “Fair enough.” He went to the cupboard where he kept some acceptable whiskey and took it out with two glasses. He poured himself a rather stiff glass and then her about half that amount. He pushed the drink over to her and took his own. She took a sip from it, almost as much to prove to him that she would as to steady her nerves and fought not to shudder at the strong taste.

“The man who took you is named Oswald Mosley. He's a politician, the leader of the British Union of Fascists in Parliament. He hired a gang out of Glasgow called the Billy Boys to take you from Scone Castle and send you down the Cut to Birmingham for me to find you.”

She frowned. “Oswald Mosley? Yes, I know who he is. I've seen him before, at a party in London.” He had seemed an unpleasant enough sort from what she'd heard, the kind of Alpha who smiles but never listens when an Omega is speaking. But still, they'd never even been introduced. “Why ever would he be interested in kidnapping me?”

“Two reasons, I think. First to bring your brother into his circle. As you may have guessed, your brother is furious over the incident and much of the discussion around your disappearance has centered around a return to traditional values, a need to make society safe again. Your brother would therefore be uniquely positioned to be quite a compelling addition to the BUF. Quite likely to see the appeal of more protections for Omegas just now, even if it means less freedom for them. ”

“And the second?”

He took a long drink. “To force you and I into a bond.” Tommy said quietly.

The words shot through her. Bond. The image of his teeth pressed against her neck made her shift in her chair uncomfortably and she took another shuddering sip of whiskey.

“Why would he want that?” She managed to keep her voice even.

“I'm a member of the BUF as well. As Patrick's new brother in law, he assumes that I'll have his ear and be able to persuade him to join as well. Besides, he thinks I need... the kind of wife he imagines you would be.”

She swallowed, a little shiver running up her spine. “If he's a member of your party, why are you telling me all of this?”

He met her gaze levelly. “Because the Home Office has something to ask of you Miss Grant.”

She blinked. “The Home Office? You mean the Security Service?”

He took from his pocket the letter that Winston Churchill had put into his hands the day he left London for Arrow house, sliding it across the table to her. She took it from the table and opened it with a slender finger, spreading it out on the table to read. It was short, with as few incriminating details as possible and almost as little information.

_Miss Grant,_

_The bearer of the letter is in the services of the Crown and has been authorized and tasked with placing upon you a request to render aid to me and my office._

_Sincere gratitude,_

_Winston S. Churchill_

She frowned, looking up at the Alpha across the table. What in the world could the letter mean? “A request to render aid? To Mr. Churchill and the Crown?”

He nodded.

“But how?”

“Mosley is a threat, not just to you, but the England in general. The ultimate goal of the BUF is the dissolution of parliament and institution of a dictatorship, likely with him or a lackey at the forefront. I was asked over a year ago to infiltrate his organization and I have. But Mosley will never trust a man like me, not in the end. Your brother though... there's a man to whom Mosley may be willing to tell the truth.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your family has resided at Scone Castle since the days of Robert the Bruce, sent in the English campaign to wipe out the Scottish clan system. There isn't an ancestor of yours documented that hasn't been everything that Mosley wants to return to: rich, protestant, and British to the core. British blood on British soil. Mosley will see your brother as a natural ally.”

“He hopes that I'll convince Patrick to join the BUF?”

“No,” he said taking a drag. “That would be my job.”

To her surprise, a little hysterical giggle burst forth at that.

“What's so funny about that, eh?”

She clamped a hand over her mouth and shook her head. “I'm sorry, it's not really funny... it's only surprisingly astute.”

“Surprisingly astute?”

“For an Alpha I mean. Most of you don't notice I think, men like Mosley, who don't think of us as really human, truly sentient.”

To her utter surprise, he favored her with his first genuine, warm smile at that. “Not a suffragette are you then Miss Grant, talking like that? You sound just like my sister Ada used to, in her more radical days.”

She smiled back. “A suffragette? Oh no, mother would never allow it.”

“Is that not a bit the point? That your mother or you Alpha wouldn't allow it.”

Her smile was a quavery little thing. “I'm not sure, Mr. Shelby. As I said, I wasn't allowed to go to the meetings. Mother says that Omega's shouldn't involve themselves in politics.”

His smile seemed to freeze in place, morphing into something hard and sardonic. Her heart turned over, wishing she could take the words back, return the unexpectedly warm expression to his face. “Well,” he said softly, “you seem to be involved in them now, like it or not. And if you do as I ask, sacrifice more than any of those women marching in the streets.”

“You want me to ask my brother to help you spy on Mosley?” She asked.

He took a long sip of whiskey. “That is not the rough part of what I'm asking.”

“What is the rough part?”

“Your brother would have to have a reason to ally himself with Mosley or else he'd never trust it.” Tommy said carefully. “A reason that Mosley has selected himself would be best. He would have no reason to doubt your brother's sincerity toward the cause if he believes that he recruited him himself.”

Her patrician brow furrowed. “Me? Me being the reason.”

“Yes.”

“But how... I mean how can I be the reason, now that we haven't bonded?”

Tommy took a drag on his cigarette but forced himself to meet her eyes as he said, very quietly, “I left Mosley with the impression that I had not bonded you, not that I _would_ not.”

Her expression widened. “Oh... oh I see.”

Her heart was suddenly pounding a tattoo in her chest. The idea of him bonding her made her feel slightly light-headed, and to her horror she felt a little trickle of slick beginning to soak her panties. She pressed her legs together but she could tell by the way his pupil's dilated and he had smelled it. She turned her head to one side not to meet his gaze. “I'm still a little bit close to my...”

“You have nothing to explain to me.”

“Can... that is may I please have one of your cigarettes?” She only very rarely smoked (her mother said it was unbecoming) but the smell of him rising to meet her arousal was making it difficult to think.

He took out the packet from his jacket and began to raise one to his lips to light it for her but her hand flashed out, catching it before it could reach his lips. He froze at her touch and she wondered if he had felt the rush of heat and electricity that flashed through her at contact with him again. His skin was impossibly warm and she jerked her hand back as if she'd touched an ember. But she'd stopped him from lighting the cigarette.

“I... that is, would it not be better if I lit it myself?” She knew with the desperate, clear instinct of self-preservation that it would not be good for her to taste his saliva in her current state of mind, not even the little bit at the end of a cigarette.

He nodded and passed it to her, offering up the lighter and letting her bring the tip tot he flame, inhaling herself. He took out another, running it over his lips once in a practiced, automatic tic before lighting it for himself.

She took a deep drag, letting the burn of the tobacco fill her lungs, pretending the slightly spinning feeling in her mid was from the same source. She closed her eyes for a moment and tried to _think_. It was so fucking hard with the smell of him right there, her Heat still close enough that even the thought of him bonding her was enough to make her slick flow. She tried to focus on the smell of the tobacco, the bitter taste of it in her mouth and the proposition at hand.

If he were to let Mosley think that he had bonded her... She opened her eyes and thought aloud. “You mean that if we were to pretend that his plan had succeeded, that you had in fact... and that is, that you had changed your mind and we were to be married, then it would make sense that you could introduce him to my brother, bring my brother to the BUF as it were but in reality as a spy for the Home Office.”

Married. Not bonded. She'd chosen her words carefully. And she got the impression he had marked the difference.

“Yes.” He hesitated for a moment, then added, “it would need to be more than just a wedding ring and some words said in a chapel. You know that, don't you?”

“Yes.”

Mosley would be able to smell her virginity on her. As would her mother and Patrick... she shivered at the thought. They would also have to mingle their scents together to keep up the charade that he had Marked her. She would have to share his bed, let him take her virginity. She forced herself not to think of it too closely, not to let herself imagine what it would feel like to be in his arms again.

Marriage, sex, Heat.

She would need to let him between her legs, bite her glands, meet her mother.

All that though, that could be undone. Only one kind of bite could not be taken back. The Mating gland at the base of her neck-- if he bit her there her scent would change permanently and the smell of him would never fade or be able to be replaced. Even a widowed Omega never lost the scent of an Alpha who had Marked her.

It was a rare Alpha who could resist Marking a girl once he'd spilled her virgin blood. At least, that was what Annabelle had always been told. But the priests and school teachers who had taught her all she knew about relations between Alphas and Omegas had also said that an Alpha would not have been able to resist an Omega as she had been when he'd first found her.

_Cross your legs, cover your glands, keep your scent and your eyes down or some Alpha might think you're asking him to do something you're not_. That's what she had always been told. But this man... was not someone for whom a priest had ever prepared her, she thought, fighting to keep the hysterical smile from her face at the notion.

And, if she asked him, would he refrain? Would he be able to give her a chance at another marriage after they'd accomplished the destruction of Mosley? She had seen his restraint before. Would he exercise it on her behalf again?

And as for the Mark itself, Mosley would have no way of verifying if her matting gland had been bitten or not. The changes that came over a pair once they were Marked were subtle, almost indistinguishable to anyone but the two involved from the blending of scent that occurred with daily scent marking. The mating gland itself, intimate at is was, was always covered so no one would know that there was no mark of his teeth sunk into it.

He was proposing to mate her, but she didn't think he was proposing to Mark her. She met his eyes, the question already framed on her lips.

“Yes.” And something about the intentional inflection of the word make her sure that she knew what she had been asking.

She swallowed. “They say.. that is they say that an Alpha can't resist Marking an Omega if she's been Heat-fasted.” Hell that was where the tradition of it had come from, the Church trying to force more Alphas to commit after their first Rut rather than leaving the poor Heated Omega with child and no marriage.

He let out a little snort of derision. “That is some shit that Priests and Alphas have been telling Omegas for hundreds of years to make them struggle less when the time comes.”

Her eyes widened at that. She couldn't remember a man ever swearing in front of her. And then she giggled. “Who sounds like a suffragette now Mr. Shelby?”

“Not a suffragette, Miss Grant. But I know the kind of lies that wolves tell sheep to make them docile.”

She felt a cold shiver go down her spine at his words. Who was this man? Everything about him was a contradiction and yet seemed to pull her in farther with every word. When she was a child her father had brought her a little woven tube for Christmas. Whens he put her fingers in she found she couldn't pull them out again. When she tried the tube pulled tight down, trapping her digits within. That was how it felt to talk to Thomas Shelby, like a puzzle she couldn't quite figure out but only entangled herself more with every attempt to make sense of it.

And yet, she wanted to know more, wanted more from him. She longed for his focus, disturbing and unsettling as she found it. She would submit to have him to examine her eagerly , even if allowing him to do so felt like tortuous dissection. She had felt what it was like to have all his terrible attention bear on her, an agony and a pleasure mixed together and potent enough that she wasn't sure it was poisonous at that dose.

And she wanted more of this conversation. He didn't seem to have discounted her, for her designation or for the state he'd found her in. She wanted to earn that unexpected trust, prove him, impress him. And, God help her, she wanted his knot.

She'd seen what it felt like to have to be under his control briefly in the car when he'd scent marked her. She wanted to know what it would be like to have him help her through a Heat, to have that will and overwhelming focus pressing her down into to the mattress, lifting her hips and taking her fully. She pushed the thought away at once, determined not to make a total fool of herself again.

“This is... this is a request from the Home Office? Officially?”

He shook his head. “This is hardly the sort of thing that could be official. Not ever.” He said very firmly. “Do not imagine that Winston Churchill or any other agent of the crown will every avow knowledge of what I am asking you to do. None of this gets written down, none of this gets documented. There will be only a little bit of contact between me and my superiors at the Office, none of them will ever contact you.”

“You mean I would have to trust you.” It was not a question. “That you're telling the truth about all this.” She gestured to the letter. “This is all the proof I'll ever have?”

“Yes.”

“Once we've achieved what we set out to do, you would grant me a divorce?”

An Omega who had not had her mating gland bitten could request a divorce but only with written permission and blessing from the Alpha in question.

“I assume you'll want a prenuptial agreement. I suggest you put it in writing there.” He said. “And I want you to understand that I'll not hold you to this plan. If at any time you wish to exercise the clause and divorce I will do all that I can to make the transition smooth for you.”

She closed her eyes. She needed to hear it aloud but the words were so hard to get out. The taboo around her Mating gland was so powerful, speaking of it to anyone, much less an unrelated Alpha, was unimaginably difficult. “You won't bite my Mating gland? Not ever?”

Except for a slight tightening of his jaw, his calm expression didn't change at her words. “No, Annabelle, I will not.”

Finally she lifted the whiskey to her lips and took a small sip. “Alright then.”

“Alright then, what?”

“Alright, I accept the request. I'll do it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys all so much for the generous reviews! I'm so grateful to everyone who weighed in to let me know that I'm not alone in this insanity. Next chapter to come is more of the sexy stuff (OF COURSE). More of the knotting and A/B/O world building! Please, please, please, comment. You don't know how much it means to me! I particularly like it when you point out specific parts that you like or thoughts that you had reading the chapter! :) Twinelove


	4. Chapter 4

Another kind of man's jaw would have dropped open at that. Tommy felt his eyes widen slightly at the pronouncement. When she put the glass down he filled both their whiskey glasses again. This time he filled hers as high as his own. “You can take a day or two to consider.” He said finally. “You don't know anything about me after all.”

She ran her finger over the edge of the glass and looked up at him again through the fringe of her bangs. Again he was struck by how young she looked, how beautiful she was. “I know everything that I think I need to know about you Mr. Shelby, to make this decision.”

“And what is it you think you know about me, eh?”

She took a drag on her cigarette and ran a hand absentmindedly over the gland in her neck. In another woman he would have thought it was deliberate, the way in made his cock harden to see her touch it, made his hands itch to touch it himself. “That you're the kind of man... the kind of Alpha who if he found an Omega... as I was when you found me, could hold himself back.” _Tied hand and foot in a shipping container, begging at the peak of my Heat_. That part she couldn't make herself say aloud yet.

“You think that makes me, what, a good man?” He couldn't keep the slight hint of cynicism from his voice, though she had the impression he had tried.

“No, I think it makes you one whose word I can trust.” She pressed her lips together. “And in this endeavor I think that will be more important to me than your virtue.”

She would, after all, be trusting him not to bite her mating gland even if she went into Heat. For that she wanted something she felt she could rely on more than just the benevolence and mercy of an Alpha she barely knew. She wanted a promise. Thomas Shelby did not strike her as someone who made promises often or lightly.

Once their work was over, once they had gotten all the information they needed from Mosley it was not out of the realm of possibility that she could find an eligible match, even if she was no longer a virgin. Some widower on his own second match would be ideal. One he stopped marking her glands the scent of him would fade slowly and vanish eventually. No Alpha would ever be able to take her though if he had claimed her Mating gland. A Beta might not mind, but there were only a handful in her social class to begin with and none of them would ever really satisfy once she'd known Heat and Rut.

Her virginity he would have to take. He was glad he hadn't needed to spell that out for her. The smell of it on her was almost overwhelming and there would be no pretense that he had Rutted her if she remained smelling as she did. Her gland though, there would be no reason why Mosley or anyone else would need to see that. An Alpha might bruise the neck or wrist gland of his Omega black and blue to highlight how well they submitted, but the Mating gland they guarded more jealously. The taboo against allowing an Alpha who was not her mate to see it was not something Annabelle had needed to be told. She had known it as instinctively as she knew to draw her hand back from a burning flame.

“Fair enough.” He said. “There are certain facts about me though that I would like out in the open though, if we are to proceed.”

“Such as?”

“How old are you?”

“Nineteen.”

“And your birthday?”

“March fifteenth.”

“I'll be forty, before you're twenty then.” He took a drag on his cigarette. “I have a child as well, a boy from my wife who passed. I've sent him to stay with his Aunt until this is settled between us but he lives with me in London.”

She considered that for a moment. “Alright.”

“Being linked to me... being my wife. It will not be the match that your parents expect.”

She glanced around the grand kitchen, a little flicker of her eyebrow asking the question for her.

“Ah no, don't pretend to be fooled by all this, sweetheart. The grand house, the cars, the suits and watches don't mean anything to a girl of your class. You know what I am.”

His voice felt like a physical presence around her, coiling around her body like a snake—all undulating, smooth scales and deadly muscle beneath. Her heart thundered in her throat and she longed to look away from his gaze but felt, suddenly, as if she was incapable.

She couldn't pretend she didn't know what he meant however. She swallowed. “Not a man born to your seat in Parliament, or to your money.”

“Nor one who came by either honestly.”

She pressed her lips together. It was no use saying that he didn't have to tell her that he was a dangerous man. She had felt the strength of his hand, his arm and the length of his cock pressed against her that night on the docks. He didn't smell like any Alpha she knew. The men if the men of her class smelled like smoke and blood and gunpowder it was only when they came back from a hunt, not here in their own houses, not as if it made up the most fundamental part of themselves.

“I've had people killed and killed them myself, not just in the war but after it, for business, protection, revenge.”

She couldn't help but let a little smile cross her lips. “You scolded me earlier, Mr. Shelby not to pretend I don't recognize things that I have been bred to. Now it's your turn to dissemble for the sake of politeness? To pretend that prey aren't born knowing how to recognize predators.”

_You think I don't recognize a carnivore when he has his teeth against my throat?_ But that felt like provocation to ask, alone as they were and her in his kitchen, dressed only in a thin silk shift and his robe. So instead she said, “you don't have to warn me that you've done violence. You've done none to me, and you've had the opportunity.”

Tommy decided against telling her how naive she sounded. True enough she might recognize him as a something to be feared. But she'd clearly never been around many, if she thought that one incidence of him refusing to let his jaws close around her neck was a guarantee of future behavior. She might someday learn that lesson, but it wouldn't be from him, not if he could help it.

“Nevertheless, there are quite a few people who would wish me harm in return. I will do my best to protect you from it... but there is no way to guarantee that you will not get hurt.”

She flicked back her head and for the first time, she looked like a person he might someday find familiar. Not like the Viscountess, but like a woman he might know. Like Ada, about to throw a glass to make herself heard at the dinner table, or Polly about to give him a shove to make him listen to her. Her expression was one he'd seen on his own face in the mirror often enough, contained fury, a determined need to have one's will done at any cost. It was surprising on her soft, Omega features and yet... he couldn't help feel it suited her.

“You are trying to dissuade me, Mr. Shelby?”

“I'm trying to tell you what you would be risking, by becoming associated with me.”

“Oswald Mosley had me taken from my bed while I slept. He had me tied, starved, forced into a Heat and nearly raped. If you think that I would not do all that I can to bring him down, you are mistaken.” She said flatly.

“You're not afraid?”

“I am not willing to allow my fear to control me.”

“Alright then.”

He pushed his chair back from the table and subbed out his cigarette. Her eyes widened, and she tensed in her chair. _Prey indeed_ , he thought wryly, _thinks if she doesn't move, I won't be able to see her_. The girl might be able to say that her fear would not control her but the Omega was less decided.

His smile was little more than a baring of teeth. “No sweetheart, I don't intend to throw you over my shoulder and carry you off to the bedroom this moment. But this close to heat though there's a possibility of reawakening it. It will go easier for you... if you don't have to think too much.” He held out his hand. “It will take a day or so for you to reach the second peak and only if I keep trying to push you back. If you change your mind tomorrow it won't be too late to stop, but I should start now.”

She shook her head. “No, I don't need to be ...”

“ **Annabelle**.” The command in his voice was enough to make her pupils dilate. The pulse beneath her gland picked up appreciably as well and her scent spiked deliciously. “ **Come here**.”

She stumbled forward a few steps instinctively, before her rational mind had a chance to overcome the Omega instinct to obey. He took her by the wrist and pulled her into his lap, one hand going around her waist, the other tangling in her hair. Brutally he pulled her head to one side and ran his tongue along the length of her neck, then bent and closed his mouth over her gland. The sound that came out of her mouth was enough to make his cock pulse. _Claim. Mate. Mine_. His teeth made contact with the thin skin and she went limp in his arms.

“Please, Alpha.” She begged when he released the pressure without giving her the satisfaction of a bite.

He let his tongue lathe over the skin of both her neck glands until she reeked of him again, then brought her wrists to his mouth and paid homage to both of them. By the end she was panting and he could smell the beginnings of slick beginning to form between her legs. He pulled her over one of his large thighs so that he legs dangled down on either side, spreading her nicely. He opened the belt of the dressing gown she wore (his own) and let it fall to the floor, then recaptured her wrists with one hand.

He was so much bigger than she was. The contrast was intoxicating. Her thighs on either side of his, her shoulders dwarfed by his own, not even spanning half the distance, the way his hand easily encircled both wrists. _She'll be tight. She'll be so fucking tight for you_. The Alpha roared at him.

Beneath she was clad in one of Grace's old negligees, one of his favorites. He almost stopped short at the sight of it. It was pure white, all lace and silk and hit her mid-thighs just so, emphasizing how small they were. Grace had bought it for his birthday, maybe his thirty-third or forth he couldn't remember. And now he was staring down the close end of forty and it was draped over the silky thighs of a teenager. Christ ,he should be ashamed of himself.

And yet it barely gave him pause. He slid a hand up the skin of her thigh, almost smoother than the silk that covered it, parting her legs and little more over his. He moved slowly, giving her plenty enough time to guess where he was going. He traced a slowly widening circle on her thigh, mouth still worrying her neck, enjoying the whimpering noises of disappointment she made every time his hand got close to her warm, slick center, and then began to slide back down.

With the hand gripping her hair he pulled her against his chest so he could speak directly into her ear. Her breath was panting, ragged against his cheek. “You are free, sweetheart, to make your own choices about the Home Office, about risking violence, the censure of your family and friends, or joining the suffragettes. I don't give a shit what you wear, or if you want a cigarette or another whiskey or coffee after dinner.” His voice was a low and rough, almost a feral growl to get the words out. “But here, on my lap or in my bed, you _obey_ me. You do as _I_ say, without question or hesitation. Do you understand that, Annabelle?”

“Yes, Alpha.” Her voice was strangled, as if she could barely get the words out.

He smiled against her gland and slid his fingers up to finally part the folds of her hot core. The moan that escaped her lips as he ran one long, slender finger along her slit, was pure, hedonistic pleasure. He arched his hips against her, letting her feel how hard he was for her.

“Spread for me, sweetheart.”

Pleasing little thing, she obliged, parting her legs and tilting her hips to accept his caresses. He let his thumb play over the little nub at the apex of her core. He had meant to leave it at that but knowing that this memory would have to serve to keep him sane, at least until morning when he might catch her again if she was willing, he allowed himself to slide a single finger into the slick-drenched tunnel that she so obediently presented for him.

He groaned against her neck at the feeling of her. Jesus she _was_ going to be a tight fit. Even his finger was difficult to get in and he could feel the proof of her virginity against his hand. The warmth and wetness was like blood pouring over his hand, her heart's blood held in his palm. He could almost swear he felt the throb of her pulse against his palm.

God how would the blood smell when he broke open that little ring of flesh, how would it taste? How would she smell, how would she taste? Most Omegas of his class lost their virgin blood to toys or fingers or even Alphas in their first heat. He'd never split an Omega open before, not like this. Even with how slick she was getting from this alone, she was going to suffer a bit before he was done with her. But he knew well enough how, done correctly, agony of the kind he intended, could be pleasure unlike any other.

He didn't pump his finger in and out as he worked her with his thumb. He didn't want to tear the little bit of skin, not yet. Instead he curled his fingers anterior, drawing a gasp of pleasure from her.

“Alpha... Alpha... oh, Alpha...” Her hands were gripping his forearm as if to draw him back. She sounded almost scared. She had probably had never had an orgasm outside of the frustrated little spontaneous ones she'd been able to wring from herself during Heat, without the aid of her hands or help. The mental image of her, tied and straining herself against a bed in frustration was enough to make his cock twitch against her and his fingers tighten in her hair.

“You're alright, sweetheart.” He soothed her. “Come for me.”

With another flick of his thumb she was over the precipice. She arched, walls clenching against his finger, eyes tight closed against the overwhelming sensation. Her bare toes, dangling almost two inches off the ground on either side of his thigh, curled and head fell back. She convulsed, a sound halfway between a sigh and something more wild, escaped her.

When she collapsed back against him, panting and spent, he drew his finger carefully from her, settling the negligee back across her thighs. If he had wanted to inspire his own Rut he would have rubbed her slick into his glands, something that a very large part of him was begging him to do. Instead he contented himself with simply sucking it off his fingers. He fought not to groan. It tasted even better than he imagined, better than any whiskey in the world and was far more intoxicating—sweet, light and feminine. It took a real effort not to lift her from his lap onto the kitchen table, part her knees and try to wring another orgasm from her with his tongue.

Leaving the whiskey and food out on the table, he swept an arm under her knees and lifted her again to his chest. She was warm, pliant in his arms as he hefted her to him and climbed the stairs to his bedroom. Her eyes were closed and he suspected she was at least half asleep but instinctively she turned her head, pressing her face into the collar of his shirt, the fingers of one hand curling loosely into the lapel of his vest. As he had expected the smell of her Heat permeated the bedroom, all fertile, willing desire. And yet there was an acrid smell of frustration that made his jaw clench. Next time she Heated he would be there to satisfy her. He would replace the smell of her frustration with his own scent.

He pulled back the covers and slid her in. Here eyes did not flutter open as he arranged her, a good sign if he hoped to push her back into a second peak. On impulse he bent, pressing a small kiss to the exposed gland of her neck. In her sleep she made a small noise of contentment, settling into the covers.

He went back down to his study, poured himself an enormous whiskey and lay back on the couch. He took out his aching cock, unsurprised to see that the knot was already half formed. Jesus, the girl was enough to make him knot outside of his Rut, even without penetrating her. He stroked himself for a while, trying to prolong the pleasure a bit. But the image of her spread on his knee, the smell of the slick she'd left on his trousers and hand, the memory of her hot, wet confines were too much. He spilled over with a groan. He cleaned himself up with his handkerchief but he'd been right, his knot had swollen and it would be an hour or more until it would go back down. He lay in the dark, cock aching and jaw clenched.

Oswald Fucking Mosley.

Churchill better know what he was doing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well I promised you satisfaction(ish) and I guess what I meant by that was that one person would be satisfied lol. Sorry about the short chapter but I promise another one soon and it will be longer. Does this count as more sexual tension or less? I can barely tell myself lol. Anyway, please, please, please leave me some lovely reviews (you've already been so generous!). Next chapter is going to be like 80% smut, 20% Alpha/Omega world-building stuff and 100% Tommy just barely holding himself back from doing what he wants to Annabelle. Are you excited for that? :D :D :D :D


	5. Chapter 5

Annabelle woke the next morning to a soft knock on her door. She was still abed, still in _his_ bed but alone. She sat up, pulling the covers to her chest. “Come in.”

The door opened and the Beta woman she remembered from her Heat poked her head around the corner. “Hello Miss Grant, good to see you up. I'm Frances, Mr. Shelby's housekeeper.”

This woman had seen her writhing, arching, begging for Frances's employer to fuck her. She'd seen her naked, ran a cold cloth over her forehead as she mumbled her obscene pleas. And now Frances found her in her employer's bed, dressed in a negligee that was almost certainly his dead wife's. She'd spent many years studying etiquette but nothing had quite prepared her for this.

“Yes, hello.” She finally managed. “Do come in, won't you?”

She came in with another girl, about Annabelle's own age, a Beta who shyly refused to meet her gaze but was carrying a rather extravagant breakfast tray: toast, eggs, baked beans, bacon, sausages and even the excellent marmalade. Annabelle's mouth watered at the sight of it.

“Good to see you looking... more yourself Miss.” Frances said.

She was grateful for the delicate turn of phrase. “Yes, I feel much better. Thank you... for all that you did for me.”

“Of course Miss Grant. I hope we will continue to please you with our hospitality.” The older woman said, kindly. “This is Martha. We have no trained lady's maids here, no need of them since Mistress Grace passed on, before your visit, but she's eager and willing, aren't you Martha?”

“Oh yes Miss.” Martha said, sinking into a wobbly little courtesy.

Annabelle, mostly focused on the tray Martha held, said, “oh yes, I'm sure she'll do an excellent job.”

Frances gave a rather more practiced motion of deference and said. “Please do ring if you need anything at all Martha cannot provide Miss.”

Martha put the tray over her knees and Annabelle set to the food with gusto.

“Shall I run you a bath Miss?”

“Oh, that would be lovely, thank you.”

She managed the two eggs, the bacon, the toast smeared thick with marmalade and a bite each of the beans and sausage. Martha had brought a pot of strong tea as well and she made it up with her usual excessive sugar and cream.

“Do they make this marmalade here then?”

“Oh yes Miss. There's an orange tree out in the garden that it comes from. Twas Mistress Grace who planted it, I think.”

“I see. It's delicious.”

“I shall tell cook you like it, so he'll be sure to send you more.”

Annabelle couldn't help but feel curious about the woman that Thomas Shelby had made his wife. A woman he had actually loved, not someone the Home Office had asked him to recruit. But this girl seemed like she was new to the household and therefore unlikely to have known the former Mistress of Arrow House.

After she had her bath Martha dried her hair and brushed it to a high sheen. She plaited it and then pinned it up into something resembling the fashionably short way women wore their hair now. She brought out several dresses and Annabelle selected a simple green frock dress with a bow at the waist as the only ornamentation. It seemed about five years out of style, unless she missed her guess. Five years since he'd been married before.

When she was dressed Frances re-appeared at the door. “Mr. Shelby says you're to come see him Miss, now that you're presentable.”

Frances led her back down to the same study where she'd found him the night before, not that she needed to. Annabelle could have found him by his scent alone, blind folded. She pushed open the door and against found him at the same desk, this time with the curtains thrown wide and the sunlight pouring in behind him.

He looked up. “Alright Frances, leave us.”

“Yes, Mr. Shelby.”

He gestured for her to take one of the chairs opposite his desk. She came in and sat in front of him. He took a cigarette from the pack on the desk and offered it to her. She shook her head and he lit it himself, sliding it across his lips once before lighting it, as if for luck.

He didn't offer any pleasantries. “I called a lawyer this morning in London. He isn't my lawyer, but he is from a reputable firm. I prefer to handle this through an independent firm, unless you object.” He said, tone brusque and businesslike. “He'll be up this afternoon to go over the contract with you.”

“Alright.”

“I've also asked my sister Ada in London to send you up some new clothes in a size and style I think will suit you. They should be here by tomorrow at the latest. If you wish for something particular you should feel free to call down to London yourself and put it on my credit.”

“Thank you, very much. That is very kind.”

He let a silence stretch out between them, before he said. “You have not changed your mind then?”

“No, Mr. Shelby.”

He took a determined drag on his cigarette, then stubbed it out. He pushed the chair back from his desk, looking at her coolly. The tableau they created was dramatic. He sat with his legs spread, her with one ankle crossed demurely behind the other. “Right then. Stand up, and take off your dress.”

She gaped at him. “What?”

“If you are serious about wishing to continue, I need to know you mean it in the cold light of day, not just when you're over-tired, half-starved and coming off a Heat. I'll not command you. I need to know that I can trust you to master yourself, when the time comes.”

He'd sat them carefully far enough apart that his scent wasn't overwhelming.

She considered him for a long moment. Perhaps he meant for her to notice the flecks of gray at his temples, the scar on his cheek and another at his lip. He was twenty years older than her and he'd fought in a war she couldn't even imagine. She should be scared of him. Hell, she was scared of him. And yet even without his overpowering smell the Omega in her longed for him _. Let him lay his head on your lap, curl over you and dominate you, sooth him and let him take all that he desires, give him children, your Heat, your slick, your glands... give him everything he wants._ And her? What did she feel for this man? Admiration, fascination, curiosity, fear and something else, something just beyond the range of thinking, like a pricking, nagging, yearning that was at the same time wholly different and wholly similar to what she'd felt when he'd scented her in Heat.

She rose from the chair and, conscious and shivering from the fact that he was watching, began to unbutton the front of the frock. Her fingers shook, making the small buttons almost impossible to undo. _The door isn't locked_ , she thought, _anyone from the household could come in_. But somehow, she knew they wouldn't. Not even if she screamed for help. Where she stood, George V was not the King, and the police had no jurisdiction.

She was keenly aware in that moment of the sensation of being alone with some great predator in his own domain. It was like sliding off a boat into the water with a curious shark or walking out of the circle of fire into a jungle where you can see the reflection of some great, glowing eyes in the dark. So far he'd been indulgent; so far she'd escaped unbitten. But how long his mercy would last, only he could know for sure.

Blushing furiously, she slid the dress down to pool at her feet. Beneath she wore a white garter belt and brassier and white stockings and nervously she crossed one arm in front of her bare stomach. He did not hide the fact that he examined her from head to toe, eyes raking over her from stem to stern.

“Come here.”

She hesitated for only a moment before moving swiftly to stand where he indicated, almost between his legs.

“Kneel here, over my lap.”

The night before he'd pulled her into his lap without asking for her cooperation. Now he asked her to get into the same position of her own volition. He offered her no help or encouragement as she bit her lip and slid first one knee, then the other, onto the chair.

She fought not to let the pathetic, mewling little sound of pleasure escape as he closed his hands over her hips, steadying her. His palm was so large and impossibly warm as it glided up to the narrowest part of her waist, almost spanning it with his fingers. The other he left at the bone of her hip, gripping her tight. He ran one large thumb along the underside of the thin silk of her brassiere, making her shiver. It would be the work of a moment for him to push down the cups, exposing her to his gaze. She looked up at him and found his eyes were cold, white hot with desire. She was keenly aware of how close he was to her. She'd never been this close to a man who wasn't a blood relative, not in her right mind anyway.

“Spread your legs.”

She obeyed. The effect was to settle her so she couldn't help but feel his arousal against the core of her, hot and aching to be sheathed in the warm wet space between her legs. Already she was slick with need and she groaned at the feeling of his own desire pressed against her.

He bent forward, cupping her chin and bringing her eyes to meet his. He was so much taller than her that even in this position she had to look up at him. “I'm going to kiss you now, Annabelle. Say 'yes, Tommy' to that.”

“Yes, Tommy.”

He did not bend his lips to her right away though. He stared down at her for a long, long moment. As if waiting for her to change her mind. “You know when I fuck you, I will not be gentle, don't you, girl?”

Her chin nodded in his fingers.

“Say it.”

“You will not be gentle.”

“The whole thing.”

“When you... you fuck me... you will not be gentle.” The stuttering way she got the vulgar words out made his pupils dilate, his fingers dug into her hips, hard enough to bruise.

“You know that I won't stop if you scream?”

“I know you won't stop.”

“I won't stop _until_ you scream.”

“I will scream.”

“And you will endure it for me?”

“I will endure it for you, Alpha.”

His hand caught her wrist faster than she could process and pulled her against him. The movement had intentionally left her off balance, forcing her to place a hand pressed against the wide, muscled expanse of his chest. His other hand went into her hair, tilting her head back to render her vulnerable. For how fast the rest of it had happened the way he let his lips descend on hers was painfully slow. He kissed her bottom lip first, a slow, exploratory sucking movement that made her part her lips.

And then, he plundered. His fist clenched, jerking her head back and he took all she had to offer. He did not tilt his hips up to thrust into her but rather settled her squarely in his lap, pulling her down on the rigid evidence of his desire.

If it were not for her panties and his suit trousers he could have pulled her down onto his cock in an instant, plunging up into her and satisfying them both. As it was, he set her into a slow, rocking movement that was sheer torment.

He broke the kiss and she gasped. “Oh God, please Alpha, please...I need... I need...”

“What do you need, sweetheart?”

“I don't know... I don't know...”

That answer seemed to satisfy him for he stood, settling her legs around his waist and stepped forward until her ass hit the edge of his desk. He laid her back over the desk in a smooth movement, kissing her lips, slipping his claiming tongue between them to taste her. Next he kissed down the column of her neck, giving each gland it's due attention.

He jerked down the brassiere baring her breasts and groaned with pleasure at the sight of them. Christ but they were perfect, tender white globes with delicate pink nipples. He took each tip into his mouth until she was writhing, arching up into his lips, fingers clenched with white knuckles at either side of her and panting with longing. “Please Alpha, please.”

She was prepared to beg him to fuck her, to knot her, to bend her over the desk and take her virginity, her virtue, her Mating gland. What she was not prepared for was that his kisses began to trail lower, past her breastbone, her navel and then the crest of her hips until her reached the mound at the crux of her. Like all Omegas, the hair there was a soft, fine dusting of sparse curls. He gripped her thighs and spread them, parting her before him in the most obscene way. She groaned, head tilting back as she felt a gush of slick at the thought of being so vulnerable, so open to him.

He bent forward, pressing his lips to the slash that was her root and was rewarded with a sound of confusion, almost panic, as he sucked lightly at the tender crux of her. She arched up, almost coming off the desk if it were not for the gripping hands at her hips to keep her still. _Like that, eh, sweetheart?_ The girl had been fucking robbed by her upbringing. She was so responsive, so reactive to his touch, as if her body was made to do this, to be stroked and caressed and bent in pleasure.

But something about the way she'd jerked when his kisses had reached their destination, the wide-eyed look of almost fear when she realized that he intended to explore her there, made him quite certain she'd never made the journey herself. If the thought of that hadn't made him one part angry and three parts hard, he might have laughed. All that careful upbringing, all the carefully worded lectures about God being able to see her if she touched herself there more than strictly necessary to keep herself clean, all the stupid, oppressive rules she'd obeyed.... and here was the end result. He wondered, distantly, if she herself realized what a waste of her time it had all been. But that was a conversation for another day.

He slid a long finger into her but again he was careful not to tear the little ring of flesh, curling instead of pumping to compliment the ministrations of his tongue. Her slick poured out of her and he drank deeply of it.

He slowed, hoping to prolong her ecstasy, but it was no use. She tilted over into a crescendo, clamping down on the finger that penetrated her and gasping when he took the opportunity to sink his teeth into the tender flesh of her thigh. Just a hint of the brutality yet to come, not even enough to break the skin. It only made her shaking pleasure deepen into something so profound for an aching, intense moment, she felt it might go on for ever.

The pieces of Annabelle Grant flew apart, scattering like leaves in a gale. Darkness washed over her consciousness, as electricity seemed to run through every nerve in her body. It was like being plunged into a dark sea of pleasure—sound and light seeming to vanish and all she could feel was her own body and the waves of sensation cresting over her.

“Jesus but the taste of you is better than any whiskey, any cigarette, anything else in the world.” He murmured against her thigh when he thought she could at least hear him again, even if she could not yet comprehend the words. “I could drink you for the rest of my days.”

He stood and gripped her chin, pushing her head to the side so she couldn't see him—no need to frighten her with the size of him yet—as he opened his trousers and freed the aching weapon within. His knot was already beginning to swell a bit in anticipation but he was heedless of future discomfort. At the sound of his buckle and zipper being undone, she tensed slightly. He let out a feral snarl of disapproval, fingers tightening on her jaw. That made her go completely limp, exposing herself utterly to him once again. One of his hands was in her hair, keeping her gaze to the wall, the other stroking himself. He kept her thighs open with one of his own larger ones. He would need to shift his hips only an inch or two to plunge into those inviting, warm folds. She wasn't struggling, only breathing rapidly. She couldn't struggle, not effectively against someone so much bigger and stronger, already pinned as she was.

He didn't try to prolong his own pleasure. The rough feel of his own hand against himself was not what he wanted and with her inviting cunt so close, his frustration was mounting almost as quickly as his arousal was.

He pumped his cock a few times more and spilled his seed over the flat, smooth expanse of her pale stomach. He struggled to keep his eyes open, to watch the jets of him shoot out over her skin but the pleasure was too great. Reason receded into a dark, warm feeling that left him shaking, jaw clenched against it. He closed his eyes, tilting his head back and let out a roar of satisfaction.

His hips jerked several times as he righted himself, back from the white oblivion that had consumed him.

When he had returned to himself he wondered if he had gone to far. He had only meant to strip the girl and taste her glands again. There she was in her virginal white, smooth, long limbs of a woman only just out of adolescence and he'd laid her over his desk and cum on her stomach like a whore. He could see her heart racing at her throat, her eyes pressed tight shut as if she did not wish to see what had happened to her. And yet... the Alpha in him was unsatisfied. He should have taken her, claimed her, mated her. His fingers dipped, almost as if of their own accord, into the pool of his seed that lay in her stomach.

He could not deny, nor suppress, the eager way his hands shook slightly as they brought his spend up to her neck. He spread it over her glands, reveling in the way it made her arch and moan. She shivered as he dipped his fingers between her legs to gather her slick and mix it with his own release, reaching again to the glands at her neck.

“Fucking like that do you?” He growled. “Like my cum painting your neck? The scent of my pleasure on you?”

She nodded, silent.

“Say it, girl.”

“I like it.” She gasped.

“The whole thing.”

“I like...” A shudder ran down her body that he felt under the hand that grasped her hair. “I like your cum on my neck... I like the scent of your pleasure, like it on me.”

“You'll learn soon enough I like to hear a bit of rough talk in your rich fucking accent. It will be the easiest way that you ever please me, so best make all you can of it.”

She shivered at his words, arching up a little bit against his fingers.

“Open your mouth.” He slipped his fingers into the warm, obediently open lips. “Suck them clean. “

She shivered again but did as she was bid.

His fingers loosened in her hair, then, slowly, pulled back. He ran a hand over his face, as if to sober himself. Then he stepped back from between her legs and tucked himself back into his trousers, zipping them up and buckling his belt again. He dug into the pocket of his vest and lit a cigarette.

He took a slow drag and said, “alright then, you can put your dress back on.”

She sat up slowly, shivering and looking dazed. She closed her legs and demurely slid her brassiere back over her breasts, blushing. He loved the way she blushed, the little faint pink across her cheeks that meant he had transgressed her sense of _etiquette_. She slid off his desk, leaving the smell and smear of her slick behind him on the dark mahogany and then nearly fled back to the green frock that had once been Grace's and slipped it on.

Only once she had the thing settled across her shoulders and the buttons done up the front, did she dare steal a glance in his direction. He was already back to looking at the papers at his desk. The cigarette in one hand sent up a lazy curl of smoke that caught the morning sunlight drifting through the blinds from the large window behind him.

She couldn't help herself. Ridiculous as it sounded, it felt impolite to leave without permission. “You're... are you're done with me then, Mr. Shelby?”

“Yes, I'm done with you. The doctor and the lawyer will be around in the afternoon. Frances will fetch you down then they arrive.”

She had her hand on the door before he spoke again, almost as an afterthought. “I think, given everything, you might call me Tommy. And I might call you Annabelle.”

She swallowed. “Alright, Tommy then.”

The lawyer came first. She was called down to his study while the Beta read the two of them the prenuptial agreement Tommy had drawn up. It was unambiguous and more than generous she found. _The Omega, regardless of any other circumstances laid upon her, may dissolve the union in divorce at any time.... The Omega shall retain any property, titles, monies or inheritances she brings with her, should she seek to file for divorce... The Alpha will gran the Omega any rights she wishes to exert over her own Heats, up to and including having them alone if she deems it necessary to the full comportment of herself as an individual._ These were only a few of the phrases that stunned her, reading over it.

As she signed it she looked up at him, wondering if this was her true wedding to Thomas Shelby. But when he caught her gazing at him he shook his head. “No sweetheart, don't romanticize this. I'll tell you when I want your heart to beat like that.”

She had bowed her head and signed her name wherever the lawyer indicated.

The doctor was more humiliating.

She sat on the edge of Thomas's bed, while the Beta slipped a stethoscope beneath her collar to listen to her heart and lungs. He took her pulse, blood pressure, temperature and history in that order. Then he turned to Thomas, who was leaning against a vanity by the window and smoking a cigarette. His presence—the presence of an Alpha that is—was, of course, required, when a doctor was with her. Beta or not, she couldn't be examined without a chaperon. But Tommy had done her the kindness of not observing too closely. His eyes drifted back to them when the Beta asked, “her temperature is elevated, is she coming off a Heat or going into one?”

“Going into one.”

“Hmm, very good. Good timing. Won't be long now then before you can Mark her.” The Beta looked practically bored by the prospect. “I assume, Mr. Shelby, you wish for me to verify that her hymen is still intact, her gland is unMarked, make a full inspection that is.”

The faint clench of his jaw was something than Annabelle had learned to look for. “No, that will not be necessary. She will require a contraceptive, however.”

The doctor's eyebrows rose at that. “You wish me to allow her to render herself infertile?”

“Yes.”

He cleared his throat. “Sir, this is highly unusual. For a Bonded Omega to be provided with such, I will need written permission from her Alpha that...”

“You will have it.” Tommy interrupted him, putting a bit of his Alpha menace into the phrase to remind the Beta to whom he spoke.

“Yes, of course sir.”

The Beta prescribed some iron tablets and a diet rich in cereals along with the contraceptive pills. He took two vials of blood to make sure that their blood types were compatible for her to carry his child more than once. Annabelle knew that the tablets were meant to build her up for the blood-loss of pregnancy, the cereals to make sure the baby was viable. No matter what Tommy said, the doctor expected her to soon be carrying his child. But he had given her ninety tablets that would allow her four months or so of relative security against a child if she remembered to take them every day.

She held the precious little things in her fingers after the doctor had left the bedroom and Tommy finished his cigarette. She sat on the bed with them resting next to her. “Thank you,” she said softly.

He glanced up sharply. “For what?”

“For these.” She indicated the contraceptives.

“That is not something for which I require thanks, sweetheart.”

The second time he'd said that to her. She said nothing.

If he got a child on her it would be as good as a Mark. He'd never be able to let her go once she'd borne him a child. He forced the words back into his throat. It was one thing to remind her of the risks she was taking, it was another to torment her with them, scare her unnecessarily. “You will be careful.” He said. “Take them every day.”

“Yes, Mr. Shelby.”

“Tommy.”

“Yes, Tommy.”

Her fingers trailed over the glands at her wrists in a way he found more than distracting. This close to her Heat the smell of her mixed with his own smell in the confined space of his bedroom was enough to make his head swim and his thoughts come clearly only with effort.

“You reviewed the prenuptial agreement? Mr. Theiry said you had no changes to make.”

“No, the terms were very generous.”

“He said you declined to clarify in writing any stipulations on how you wish to take your Heat.”

She glanced up at him, meeting his eyes only for a moment before turning them again demurely down. “I... that is I felt that was something the two of us could negotiate a little more personally. No need to involve Mr. Theiry.”

He waited for a long moment but no other information was forthcoming.

“What are your stipulations, then?” He finally asked.

For another furtive moment she met his eyes, then glanced down again, blushing. When she spoke though, she didn't stutter or falter. “I haven't enough experience, Mr. Shelby, to know what they should be. I am trusting you not to bite my Mating gland... I will have to trust you with the rest as well.”

He took a deep drag on the cigarette. “I've told you what I am, shown you this morning. I was rougher...” He cleared his throat. “I was rougher with you, then I intended to be. If you wish me to be more restrained, then I shall be.”

She was sitting on the edge of the bed with her hands twisting at the hem of her frock, not meeting his eyes. The tiny shake of her head was almost imperceptible.

“What does that mean, Annabelle, eh? You have to say it aloud.”

“I don't wish it.” Her voice was a whisper. “I don't wish you to be more restrained.”

His jaw tightened. He wanted to push her back on the bed and make her beg again but he had hated the way she'd been looking at the floor since the Beta doctor had asked if he wanted some proof he would be the first to touch her. Instead he nodded. “Alright then.”

He stepped towards the door, then paused.

“Is there anything you need, while you're here? I can send a dressmaker to get your some of your own clothes, perhaps, or lace or ribbons, or anything else you like. If you have some hobby, painting or piano or something and there aren't the materials for it here, Frances can send a boy to fetch whatever you need.”

“Thank you.”

He gave her a long moment to consider what she'd like to request but when she said no more he stood. “Alright, you know where to find me.”

He was almost to the door before she glanced up. “Am I free to leave?”

He frowned.

“Free to leave the house I mean, to walk the grounds.”

“Yes, why wouldn't you be?”

“So close to my Heat I mean... some Alphas would want to keep,” she tried for a bright, flippant smile but her chin wobbled slightly, giving her away, “a bit of a tight leash.”

His face did not change perceptibly, and she was not practiced at reading his expressions yet, but Annabelle thought she could almost imagine a small frown crossed his lips for an instant at that pronouncement.

“You're free to walk the grounds as you like. There are fine horses in the stable if you ride. If you wish to go into town, I will arrange to accompany you.”

“Thank you... Tommy.”

He nodded and hesitated only a moment before adding,“in the future... you can be sure that you'll know when you get close to the end of my leash. No need to wonder.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well... did I deliver on my promise? Thank you all so kindly for your comments. As I said before in them and in the words of Wilhelmina Silver's brother: I REGRET NOTHING. But seriously, please, please, please let me know what you think of the chapter, the world, the characters... anything. I love short reviews but I particularly love long reviews! And I love all you readers. Next chapter I promise actual, real satisfaction (in on particular form) and frustration (in another particular form). :D Twinelove


	6. Chapter 6

He woke from a dream of her tied and needy, bound by ribbons of red silk and for a moment wondered what had disturbed him. He sat up from the chaise and realized she was standing in the door of his office. The smell of her was more intense than it had been even that first night, on the docks. Slick was drooling down her leg and her eyes were wide and full of a mixture of fear and arousal.

“Alpha... alpha....” She groaned, pressing her legs together.

He was on his feet in an instant, cock throbbing. The sight of her was enough to boil his blood, the smell of her beside. If he pushed her to the floor she would let him fuck her right there, on the expensive carpet of his study, bent over the desk or on the chaise. _Wherever he wished. Whatever he wished._ Her smell alone made that much clear. He could spill her maiden blood over the papers on his desk or knot her on the floor. But from the way she looked he did not expect this heat to be a short one. It would not be prudent to let her start here. She would be difficult to move once they started. She'd want to nest where he had taken her.

It was still early, he could tell by the dim gray light streaming in through the curtains.

“Annabelle, go to my bedroom and wait for me there.”

She took another, stumbling step forward. “Alpha... please.”

“ **Annabelle**.” He put a command into his voice and she winced.

“Please.”

“ **Do as you are bid**.”

She sobbed, torn between two opposing needs. He relented. “Go to my bedroom, and I will join you shortly. Kneel at the foot of the bed and do not touch yourself. I'll know if you do, and I'll be displeased. You want to please your Alpha, eh?”

“Yes... Yes... I want to please you.”

“Then do as I say.”

She nodded, pressing her lips and legs together in abject misery as she stumbled back and toward the stairs, keening in distress and need.

His cock was stiff as hell as he rang for Frances. He sat behind the desk to keep from scandalizing the old housekeeper as he ordered her to bring him a new pressed suit and water to shave to the study. “Miss Grant and I are to be left alone for the next few days Frances. I won't want anyone in that wing of the house, except to bring us food and drink.”

“Yes, of course Mr. Shelby. I will make sure the household is aware of your wishes.”

He took his time shaving and putting on the fresh suit. He slicked back his hair and dressed with care. This would not have been how this girl would ever have imagined. What she would have wanted he could barely imagine: a white dress, a cake, an Alpha her parents had met. The least he could do was show up without rough stubble to scratch her thighs, and looking the part, for he knew himself too well to expect he would show her any other quarter.

When he was satisfied with his appearance in the mirror he went up the stairs slowly, forcing himself not to rush. He went to the familiar door and opened it without knocking. As he had instructed she was kneeling on the foot of the bed. She was wearing a thin silk robe but it was open at the throat, revealing the pink of the glands at her neck that were swollen with blood and pulsing with pheromones.

He came to stand before her and undid the belt of the robe, pushing it from her shoulders. Beneath she was naked. He took a moment to drink in the sight of her, small but perfect breasts, slender waist and hips with long legs folded beneath her. Her skin was perfect, creamy white and very pale compared to his own. Her dark, curly hair she'd fashioned in a loose braid that hung down her back, though some strands had escaped and fell free about her face. Wide blue eyes looked up at him, pupils wide with lust and lips parted and panting.

He bent and kissed her lips gently, taking her by her slim shoulders and relishing the shiver that went down her spine at his touch. Her skin was flushed and warm, inviting. He slid his hand down, skimming her breast, hips and down to slip a finger into the wet and inviting folds below. She squirmed, huffing out a breath. “Please...Alpha... please...”

“Soon enough.” He nudged her legs apart.

He stepped back and licked the slick from his fingers. The taste of her--light and sweet and heady--exploded across his tongue. He had promised himself he would take his time with her, but fuck if he didn't want to push her down, flip her over and plunge in, taking her from behind as brutally as he wanted.

He hung up his jacket vest, folding each neatly across the back of a chair. He took off his belt and undid the sleeve garters. He unbuttoned the cuffs of his shirt and unslung the gun holster. He put it carefully down on a writing desk and then turned to look at her. She watched his every move with an expression of mixed unabashed hunger. The apprehension he'd seen when he'd ordered her onto his lap the day before was gone, replaced only with the raw need of her Heat. He spoke as he unbuttoned his collar and cuffs, then turned to unbuttoning the front of his shirt, “the only thing I can't decide, is how to have you first.”

She did not answer except for a keening whine of a sound.

When he had rid himself of his shirt he went back to the bed. He leaned down and kissed her slowly. Her lips parted inviting him in and he deepened the kiss until it was an inferno. She yielded the territory of her mouth easily, parting her lips and inviting him to take all he desired. Her hands went up to his shoulders, tentatively sliding up to his hair when he didn't stop her. Her palms slid over the shaved head at the base of his skull, pressing gently, urging him on.

He laid her gently back, climbing onto the bed to join her and arranging her so she lay on her back with knees on either side of his hips. He cupped one breast with his hand, flicking his thumb over a breast until she moaned into his mouth. He kissed down her neck, paying special attention to scent her glands thoroughly. He grazed each with his teeth, making her arch and scream, but not breaking the skin.

He slid down farther and pushed her knees apart, spreading her sex wide open to him. She groaned arching as he slid a long finger into her. “Please Alpha, please fill me, please fill me... please...” her voice was hoarse and rough.

“Not yet, sweetheart, not yet.”

She sobbed as he sucked on the tenderest part of her, arching at the overwhelming sensation and almost crying at the lack of fulfillment, at the pleasure, at the void within her that was rapidly becoming a painful reality. He had the sensation of pulling a bow string tighter and tighter as he pulled her closer to crescendo. She writhed beneath him in pain, not wanting the pleasure when it came only with emptiness but he did not relent and finally he was rewarded with a stiffening of muscles beneath his fingers. Her fingers curled in the bedsheets as if in agony as she tensed and shuddered, spilling over into that void of darkness and pleasure that he soon intended to find for himself in her.

When her eyes opened again he saw that she was still as wild and unsatiated as she'd been to start. It was his knot she needed and he knew it but the prelude had not been for nothing. It would ease what was to come next. He stood and rid himself of his trousers and pants, then returned to the bed, pushing her knees apart and lining himself up with her slick, wet folds.

He didn't push in, however. He stroked her hair, damp and limp with sweat, back from her heated brow. He bent and kissed her glands, then her breasts. His hand returned to the tender nub at the crux of her, and she cried out, oversensitive and still craving more.

“Tommy! Tommy, please!”

He pushed in only when he was sure she could take no more, that she would break apart in his arms or strike him if he denied her a moment longer. But despite all her slick and her arching, pushing, straining to accept him, in the end the tightness of her was overwhelming.

“Fuck.” He gasped as he pushed in. “Fuck but your tight, sweetheart. So perfect and tight. Just for me. All for me.”

“Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes, Tommy, just for you. All for you.” Her voice was pleading even as she squirmed beneath him at the overwhelming sensation of being filled by him.

He knew the moment he was to have her maidenhead. The slight increase of pressure against his manhood and he paused to savor the moment. He pulled her head to the side. “Present, sweetheart. Present for your Alpha.”

She held her neck where he wanted it, vulnerable and ready for his bite. She was trembling and he could smell that she was afraid as well, braced and trembling beneath the tumult of need. “Yes, Alpha, yes. Anything.”

He thrust his hips forward and she gasped in pain as he slid home. He felt the new wetness of blood between them, not just slick and struggled not surge forward and begin thrusting at the thought of it. Her fucking _virginity_. He'd had it now and there was no going back. She'd given him a part of her that he would always own. Whatever else happened, who ever the next Alpha was, he could not have this from her. He dipped his fingers into the mixture of blood and slick and brought it to his lips to taste.

The taste of it crackled through his brain like a bolt of lightening: sweet and heady and forbidden, like her slick. He'd spilled blood before but not like this. He wanted to lick up every last drop of this blood and then spill more. He wanted to make a ruin of her neck, her wrists, her Mating gland.

Instead he began to move his hips. The warm, enveloping feeling of her was beyond what he could have imagined. She was so wet and yet so tight. With each thrust she whined in pain and arched against him, begging for more. Her hands raked over his shoulders, arms and back, spurring him on to thrust deeper even as she gasped as he plunged in.

He could feel his knot beginning to swell. “I'm going to tie you, sweetheart.” He warned her.

“Yes, Alpha, please.”

She began to scream with each thrust as he knot grew. He pushed her knees apart farther to give her some relief but it could only help so much. When his knot became too big he pushed in fully, knowing that if he waited too long he would be trapped outside of her, unable to push in. He rocked back and forth, buried deep within her.

Her eyes snapped shut again and her muscles began to spasm around him, clenching down as her head tilted back and her fingers clenched at his shoulders. “Tommy, I'm....”

But he was gone too. In a hurricane his release descended on him, washing away all else. His mind went black and blank, pleasure flowing in to erase all else as he spilled himself into her. His emptiness flowing into her heat and warmth and dissipating like water thrown into a hot pan. All thought and control left him, just for a moment, in the warmth and welcoming depths of her.

When they had both recovered he rolled off of her. They were still tied together so he moved her with him, laying her so she lay sprawled across his chest, like he was some barbarian raider and she his spoils of war. Her bare breasts lay across the firm muscles of his chest and little fluttering fingers lay against his skin. Her cheek was pressed against his heart and her cunt enveloped him, tied as he was. Her breath was still coming in little gasps and she clung to him as a drowning victim might to a rock in a treacherous sea.

But eventually she settled. The desperate edge to be knotted ebbed away, leaving only the Viscountess behind. Or as near to her as could be expected in a Heat. She met his gaze only hesitantly, blushing and nervous and unable to move herself from where he had arranged her. He trailed long fingers up the tender flesh on the inside of her bare arm, struggling against the instinct that told him to let the fingers move up and touch her Mating gland.

Instead he lit a cigarette and shifted his hips so she might be more comfortable. Her slender legs were split wide to straddle his hips, to accommodate the knot still within him. Occasionally he gripped her hips more firmly, rocking her on him to bring forth another spurt from him and another quaking orgasm from her. But otherwise, he left her to her own thoughts.

When his knot had waned enough to allow her to slide off he gave her as much distance as he thought either of them could tolerate. He slid her off him, ignoring her little pleading 'ah' of dissatisfaction, then pulled her against his side. He kept one arm locked about her waist, knowing that she would protest if he allowed her more than that.

It took less time than he remembered for her scent to swell again. She pressed her legs together and he could smell her slick beginning to build again. He stroked her hair, lazily, trailing long fingers through the curls and marveling at how soft and fine it was. He trailed his fingers over the gland at the side of her neck and smiled as she shivered.

“I thought you said you'd not be gentle.” She whispered

“I changed me mind.”

Her fingers were fluttering along his ribs again, not daring to take the territory she truly desired to touch but giving small hints at it. The Viscountess and the Omega were both present, it seemed, but Annabelle herself had yet to decide her own fate.

“If you want something, Annabelle, you'll have to ask for it.”

She looked up at him. “Please.”

“Please, what?”

“Please... take me again.”

He rolled her over beneath him and pressed a kiss to her neck. She was already squirming beneath him, arching and ready. He teased her for a moment, kissing and nipping at her breasts, her neck, her throat. Then hefted himself and pushed into the warmth at the center of her. The warmth and tightness of her was something to which he felt he would never grow accustomed.

It was only a matter of moments before she was writhing beneath him, meeting every thrust as he slammed into her.

But it wasn't what he wanted, not exactly. Feeling like a bastard, knowing it was a mistake, he hooked one arm under her knee. She was so small and so far gone with need, nearly limp, it was the work of a second to flip her onto her stomach. He pulled her hips up, bringing her to her hands and knees and pushed back into her.

“Tommy!” Her head fell back at the overwhelming sensation of the new angle.

“Push back against me, sweetheart, make it good for your Alpha.” His voice was a snarl. Her thighs were beginning to tremble with exertion but she obeyed, tilting her hips instinctively to just the right angle so that the feel of her, already sheathing him in the warm, wet tightness of her, became somehow even more exquisite.

And then... she let her head fall forward.

Tommy felt every muscle in his body tense at the sight. He'd felt the sensation of time elongating in battle before, waiting for picks to break through the wall of that tunnel in France, watching Grace bleed beneath his hands on a ballroom floor. Never before had he felt a pleasurable moment slow like this. But for a minute, that lasted an eternity in his mind, he really thought he was going to bite her Mating gland.

The Omega presentation posture was unmistakable, a shift of her hips, her shoulders, her neck that emphasized the gland just at the base of her neck, just above the prominent vertebrae between her shoulders. The Alpha within him roared out the victory. _The Omega invites you, accepts you, submits to you. Take her. Bite her. Claim her._

One hand slid up the side of her to rest at her shoulder. He was still sliding in an out of her and as he ran a thumb, reverentially across the patch of flesh she had presented, he felt the muscles within her shudder, almost as if in orgasm. “Tommy... please...” Her voice was high, strained, pleading.

But he knew better than that. If he bit her now, when she'd asked him not to, he'd be no better than Mosley. With an incredible effort of will he forced himself to pull his hand, trembling, back from her Mating gland.

The noise of pure Omega despair beneath him was enough to refocus him on her. She felt cheated that he hadn't taken her up on the offer, felt rejected. Her scent bloomed with an acrid smell of fear and confusion. He would have to make it up to her in some way.

With one hand he pushed her chest down, forcing her to arch her hips up even more against him and began to fuck her with deliberate brutality. He snapped his hips against hers with a savagery born of their mutual frustration, pulling her hips back to take the full length of his stroke and trying to focus them both on nothing more than the feeling of him moving within her.

When he felt his knot begin to swell he pushed her knees together with his own. The effect was to make that tight passage even more excruciatingly snug. He held her hips hard against his stroked, knowing that the feeling must be overwhelming.

“Christ, you're fucking exquisite.” He hissed.

When the knot was almost too big for her to accommodate he pulled out slightly, letting her feel the brutal stretch of the widest part of him at her opening. Even as far gone as she was, that elicited a little groaning sob. “Please, Alpha, please...”  
But she didn't struggle, didn't try to shift to make herself more comfortable: open her knees or push back to slide in in further. She accepted his decision, his mastery over her. With the hand not holding up her hips he reached around her hip to the little nub of flesh and began to stroke her. “You would stay like this for as long as it pleases me, wouldn't you?”

“Yes!”

“Split open and aching on my cock, your little cunt still sore from when I took your innocence.”

“Yes, Alpha!”

“You like it here, eh? On your knees in front of me?”

“I like it... on my knees in front of you.”

She was close. He could see her eyes beginning close and her thighs tremble. But he didn't speed up his pace. He let the moment stretch on as long as possible, the building pleasure and pain rising within her to a crescendo. He felt her tip over the edge, her muscles clenching around him so powerfully he thought for a moment he might not be able to get the knot into her.

He bent over her, gripping her hip and shoulder hard enough to bruise, and bit into the lesser gland at the base of her neck. It was enough to push her over the edge. She screamed, arching against him as he thrust in deep, her muscles clenching around him as she came. Her blood poured over his tongue, salty and sweet and the best thing he'd ever tasted. His knot throbbed within him and he fought back the urge to cum right then.

All the fight had gone out of her and she was slack beneath his teeth and yet, it wasn't enough, not for either of them. He took her by the hair and turned her head to the other side and opened the matching gland. She gasped, clenching again, a little sob of pleasure and pain mixed.

The momentary slackening of her muscles was enough to allow him to slide home, and with a few small strokes, really just the rocking movements he could accomplish with her so tight around him, he tipped over the edge too.

Pleasure welled up in him like her blood across his tongue, a heady, consuming feeling that washed away all else. She filled his senses, surrounding him body and mind. He let himself collapse onto her, covering her body in his own, pushing her down into the soft mattress beneath them.

Pleasure crested like a wave again and for the first time, he felt he recognized her within it. Before, when he had moved within her until his own crisis had torn him from the banal, it had felt a solitary pleasure. He had felt like a conquering soldier, alone in a sacred place, he did not understand, nor had seen before. He had felt the importance of the place, a natural reverence, but no human intellect had been there to share within it. Now though, he felt the girl beneath him—the warm and luminous 'I' of her suffused through and intertwining with his own consciousness.

She was distant from him still, like an old photograph, or a voice carried over water from far away. But never before had he felt her open to him in that way.

“Good girl.”

Boneless as she was beneath him, she did not protest when he turned to licked the wounds he'd made, savoring the sight of them and the taste of her. She shivered a bit, another little fluttering clench around him letting him know that she was enjoying the attention. Despite the healing enzymes in his saliva, they would bloom to bruises in a few hours. He hadn't gone easy on her.

 _I don't wish you to be restrained_. Well, no one could say that he hadn't delivered on that wish.

They fell asleep for a while and she woke with him fucking her from behind, one hand brutally gripped in her hair and her legs pinned together. She sobbed as the intensity of the sensation but he did not relent until he had tied her again.

She spent the next two days (by his estimate) tied on his cock for the majority of her time. Sometimes she woke when he thrust into her, crying out as he bottomed out in her. He bent over her, arms straining to keep the crushing weight of her even as he thrust into her brutally. With her on her stomach and her legs together the size of him was exaggerated and overwhelming, enough to make her cry outright in pain. But both of them were too far gone to care. After two days he went to fetch a tray left for them at the door and fed her food and water and whiskey. He savored a glass as he fucked her from behind for two hours. Her skin was raw and chaffed by this time and she sobbed as he thrust in but he paid her no mind, knowing that she would only beg for it if he relented. When he had finished in her he arranged them so he could sit up at the head of the bed, with her straddling his lap while they waited for his knot to go down.

She looked an absolute mess.

At some point she had pulled her hair up in a loose knot at the base of her skull with a ribbon to keep it from touching the raw flesh of her glands but he had tangled his hands in it and used it to pull her back on him, arching her back and making her clench on him in pain so strands of it had escaped, curling around her face in a messy halo. Her lips and the tips of her breasts were cracked and pink from his kisses and bites. Her glands had fared worse: purple bruises formed almost a necklace that stretched down to the slender collarbones, matching the encircling bruises at her wrists. Each time he tied her, he had opened them. And her eyes were red and swollen from tears. She'd cried even as she begged him to take her as he wished.

Some part of him thought he should be ashamed of himself, taking in the raw flesh and watery eyes. But for all of it, there was no denying that she looked content, in addition to everything else. Her eyes were glassy and half closed and the smell of her was pure, Omega contentment. He slid a hand up the slender curve of her waist making her shiver and flexed within her, eliciting a little gasp of pain and a reciprocating little flutter of her inner muscles. The lips below were also swollen and tender. Unbidden the image of her swollen with his child came. He knew it was only the pheromones of her Heat but still it sent a shiver down his spine. She was such a little thing the baby would take up so much of her. He'd missed Grace's pregnancy and had always regretted it.

He held out the whiskey glass for her, and she took it with trembling fingers. “Drink it all, sweetheart.”

She took a sip, holding it with two hands as if she didn't think she had the strength for the heavy glass with one. “Is this the end? Is it breaking, do you think?” She asked, her voice raw and low.

He shook his head. “No. There will be lucid moments like this, little brief periods of respite where we can think. To make sure you survive, that I don't damage you too much. You should eat something when you can move.”

She nodded. “How much longer?”

“Maybe half-way? Difficult to say.”

His hand seemed to move of his own accord, sliding over her in slow, possessive strokes, tracing the curve of her waist and trailing over the tops of her thigh before beginning again.

She watched his hand out of the corner of her eye, warily.

He did what he could to make the respite last as long as it could, resisting the urge to feed her from his hand while she knelt before him, allowing her to put on a robe and sit at a table to have the tea sandwiches she'd selected for herself. The Alpha part of him protested it all but he kept it at bay as long as he could.

He put on his trousers and went onto the balcony for a cigarette. It was the middle of the night and he watched the stars for a while until he began to smell the scent of her rise again and heard her begin to become restless in the room. She fought her instinct to go out onto the porch and beg him to return to her bed with her for as long as she could. When she finally succumbed he took her savagely against the wall under the open stars and then again, with similar brutality, on all fours the rough stone of the balcony until her knees bled.

He was wrong that they were half way through. They went for days afterward and without a sign of the lucidity he had promised. He opened her wounds a dozen time a day but by and by he opened them less, took her only whens he begged. On the final night he had her ride him as he savored a whiskey and cigarette, watching her bounce on him slowly as he tried to hold out for as long as possible. When he finally did spill into her his knot did not swell for the first time and she whined in disappointment and despair.

“It's alright sweetheart, your Heat is ending, that's all.” He said as she lay against his chest and he finished the whiskey. “It had to end sometime and I can't knot you every time we fuck.”

Post-Heat was a needy, vulnerable time for an Omega. She'd felt raw, open, close to tears at the thought that the Heat was over, that he would leave her side again. “I want to please you, Alpha... Tommy, I want you be pleased.”

“I am pleased.”

She pressed a supplicating kiss to his chest and turned her head to meet his eyes. “Truly?”

“If I wasn't pleased, I would take what would please me.”

“You promise?”

“I promise.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy shit. Well people asked for them to get down to the real business and no one can say I didn't deliver on that wish, eh? Like Tommy, in theory I could be restrained, but I clearly don't want to be. I'm blushing. Obviously from the filth that I wrote above and my gall to post it for you but also because your reviews were SO NICE! I don't deserve you guys at all, obviously! But I am going to take it.... Thank you all so very, very, very much for the generous reviews! Please keep them coming. They really are fuel for my writing flames, I promise, and I cannot tell you how happy they make me! If you would be so kind let me know which parts of the smut (there's nothing else in the chapter lol) that you found particularly hot I will try to do more in that vein. What do you hope to see in the future? What do you think of the developing relationship? Of Annabelle as a character? Of my portrayal of Tommy? Or the world of a/b/o I'm building. TELL ME EVERYTHING. :D Twinelove.


	7. Chapter 7

When Tommy woke again it was late morning and her temperature had normalized. She lay sprawled over his chest, legs still twined with his and a sheen of sweat over her brow. But her skin was no longer feverish against his. Her heat had broken. When Grace's Heats had ended he had always drawn her a bath and they'd sat together in it for an hour or two. She'd liked the warmth, a reminder of the days past when her own core had burned, and the closeness of him. Sometimes they'd talked, sometimes they'd smoked in companionable silence.

He wasn't sure what he would talk to Annabelle Grant about, wasn't sure that she wouldn't rather be alone now that she no longer burned for him. So instead he drew a fresh shirt over his stiff and soiled shoulders and turned on the tub for her. She was sitting up in bed when he came out to the bedroom, looking at him with large, wary eyes.

“I'll have Frances send a girl with a tray.”

And without another word, he was gone.

When the door had shut behind him, Annabelle stayed as she was, seemingly frozen in place as she listened to his footsteps down the hall. She stared ahead of herself, without seeing, almost without thinking. Her mind was blank, except for flashes of images the days prior. He would remember clearly, he hadn't been in Rut she thought, but for her only certain parts were clear. _I thought you said you would not be gentle. I changed me mind._ The taste of her own blood mixed with his spend that he'd brought to her lips and the way she'd shuddered at the profound way it had affected her. The feeling of his knot as he split her open, his body pressing her own down—helplessness that felt like safety, pain that felt like pleasure. He'd pulled her onto him and her thighs had strained as she worked for hours to please him until finally he let her sink down a final time as he knot swelled and her thighs trembled along with the muscles of her cunt as they both came.

And then there was the second time. She shivered at the memory. She had wanted him to do it, in the moment, wanted it more than anything else in the world. Hell, truth be told she wasn't sure she didn't want it now. The Omega part of her at least was quite sure that she did want it. Annabelle herself was surprised that even some part of her conscious self wanted to know what it felt like.

Heat had always been something that she'd been afraid of, something she dreaded. But there was no use pretending, even to herself, that the past few days hadn't been extraordinary. Before she'd met Tommy there had been some vague notion of what she wanted: an Alpha who looked at her just as he had—as if she were some precious jewel, something beautiful, costly, rare and fine. Something that he valued, would protect. Something that he was pleased with, that gave him pleasure.

She'd known at least enough to ask him not to be restrained.

What she hadn't known was how she would feel. How calm and fulfilled it made her when he took what he wanted. She had not expected the strange measure of pride she felt when she ran her fingers over the bruised glands at her neck, remembering how she had bent beneath him, a willing supplicant. She certainly hadn't imagined how her own pleasure would be so central to their coupling. In that too, he had been unrestrained, wringing orgasm after orgasm from her until her body only trembled, too tired and raw to do more. When her strength had failed he had held up her hips, positioning her as he wished, and fucking her brutally. And still she had come for him. Unable to hold herself up, she had given him the only thing she had left: her pleasure. She had submitted to all he had asked her, given him all he had asked for and felt his pleasure at it. What would it feel like to give him this last little bit of her?

He had wanted her Mating gland, that much had been clear. The Alpha smell when she'd presented it to him had been one of incandescent pride, a final, arrogant mastery that had made her ache with longing. _Kneel at his feet, this conqueror, supplicate and please him_. Her Omega had screamed at her.

But was it only the Alpha that wanted to Claim her? What would Tommy, himself, want? That was less clear, not something she could smell on him and certainly not something she could read on that mask of a face. He had asked her for her help in this endeavor because the Home Office needed her to play along. And he'd enjoyed her Heat. He was kind to her, in his own Alpha way. The Alpha liked the Omega, but what did the man think of the girl? It was like a puzzle she couldn't quite put together, wasn't sure she had all the pieces for, anyway.

He had told her that night in the kitchen that he would be forty before she was twenty, that he'd killed men of his own volition. How starkly he'd drawn the contrast between them...

A knock at the door broke her reverie. “Yes, come in.” She said, automatically.

Martha came in with a tray. She put it on the table and went to draw the blinds, letting in the bright morning light. “Mr. Shelby says you are to eat all that and then to have a bath Miss.” Martha told her.

The tray was loaded with food, but she was ravenous. She ate with real gusto as Martha prepared the bath for her. She was stiff and nearly matted with their combined fluids. She blushed as the maid helped her into the bath. The Beta wouldn't be affected by the smell of the Heat, of Tommy on her, but she would be able to see the bruises and marks he'd left. The maid took her time untangling Annabelle's hair and scrubbing her back. When Annabelle was as clean as she'd ever been she helped her out of the tub and set to drying her hair and helping her fix her face.

She was so weak her fingers trembled even to powder her cheeks or apply lipstick.

When she was finished Martha offered her a tin of salve, blushing and averting her eyes. She had been careful to respectfully keep her eyes averted from the wounds on Anabelle's neck. Annabelle shook her head. Something instinctual told her that Tommy would take anything on her glands as an affront, an invitation to reopen them. As if he needed one.

Based on what little she had been told about Heats and Alphas as a girl, some part of her might have expected him to come to her that first day: to ravage her again. She felt his presence, in her scent and on her skin, in the soreness of her legs and the tender aching of her neck. She wanted to go to him, feared deeply he would come to her.

She dressed very, very carefully with the help of Martha and then stood in the center of the bedroom for nearly a half hour, expecting a knock. When it didn't come she went downstairs and took a walk, took tea in the garden and then spent the afternoon reading. She took dinner alone as Frances told her that the master had too much work to join her. When she could avoid it no longer she returned to the bedroom and changed for bed.

She was still awake and staring at a book, pretending to read, when the door handle turned well past midnight.

“I didn't think you would be up.” He said.

He had bathed and shaved, looking as crisp and unaffected as he ever did.

“I... I wanted to wait up for you.”

He considered that lie for a moment. He could smell her anxiety. The fluttering of her pulse was as obvious to him as the subtle shift in her scent and the way her fingers gripped the page of the book. “Alright.” He said.

She reminded him of a frightened young filly who knows she must be caught by the bridle but fears it too. With a horse it would have been easier: with an open palm and a few murmured words in Romani and he could convince any beast he didn't intend to hurt them. But what of this woman? Could he rightly say he didn't intend to hurt her? With her neck still a ruin and her sore and aching from his knot, what use in pretending he did not intend to have her again, and have her as he pleased?

He came forward and sat on the side of the bed. He took the book from her hands and laid it on the bed beside her. She shivered slightly as his fingers met hers. “Shh... shhh... there's a good girl.... you're alright.”

He let his hands slide to her shoulders, pulling down the delicate thin ropes of silk that held up the little sheaf of silk she'd chosen as her dressing gown. He bared her breasts, letting his rough hand slide over one, cupping it gently. She was quaking in fear as he slid the hand across her breast, then up to run a thumb across her trembling lower lip.

The other hand he dipped below the covers, sliding down one long leg before tracing a path up to the apex of her legs. “Tommy!” Her voice was a fearful plea as he reached her folds and parted them, her fingers flying to his arm as if to pull it back.

He met her gaze for a long moment, then drew back his hand. “Alright.”

He stood and went to the bathroom. He brushed his teeth and took off his suit. His cock was still hard and he could still smell the lingering scent of her Heat from the room. He thought about taking himself in hand to finish the job but decided against. Despite the late hour he turned on the taps for a bath to give her time to pretend to go to sleep. Besides the heat and warmth would be some kind of substitute for what he wanted.

He poured himself a whiskey and lit a cigarette.

He was only half surprised when the handle of the bathroom turned and she slipped in. Her skin seemed to glow in the dim light. It occurred to him to be annoyed, to tell her to make up her fucking mind about what it was exactly she thought she'd bargained for with him in the kitchen that night. But she looked so timid and young, he relented.

“What do you want Annabelle?” He sighed. “What can I do for you?”

She swallowed. “I...I....I don't know.”

“Do you want to get into the bath with me? Or go back into the bedroom and pretend to be asleep? Make up your mind.”

She was shifting her weight from side to side like a filly that's spotted a rider with a crop. “It's only... well, I look...well I don't look my best.” She blushed. “Are you sure you want to see me like this? When I'm not in Heat I mean.”

For the first time it occurred to him that the robe she'd chosen had a high collar and long sleeves. It hid most of the bruising at her neck and wrists, though even the soft fabric would probably chafe.

His jaw tightened. “Are you asking if I want to see me mark on you? If I'd be anything but proud to see the evidence that you let me have all that I wanted?”

She swallowed. “You're not... that is, you won't be repulsed by me? To see me so... bruised, I mean.”

He took a long drag on the cigarette. “All day I've been telling myself not to come up here.” He said thoughtfully. “To give you a day to fucking recuperate. But those bruises and marks are all I can bloody think about if I don't reign meself in.”

Beneath the warm water his cock stirred.

“Take off that robe and come get in the bath.”

She moved slowly, undoing the belt and letting the robe slide from her shoulders. Beneath it she was glorious, pale skin marked with his ownership, his mastery and her obedience. She came forward and accepted his hand as he guided her into the bath. He helped her kneel over him and settled her so that the erect tip of him just brushed her entrance.

“Being as that I've had a long day and I'm enjoying me whiskey, I think I'll let you do the work this time.” He instructed her. “Make it good for me.”

She winced as she lowered herself onto him. In the warm water her slick washed away almost as soon as she produced it, leaving her with only a little to ease accommodating him into her bruised passage. He'd had her ride him before and she knew the movement she needed but he'd always helped her, guided her with a brutal grip on her hips, unable to let her go when his mind was consumed with her Heat.

Now he settled back, cigarette in one hand and whiskey in the other and watched her as she began to ride him. Her fingers gripped either side of the tub to give herself support, trembling a little as she rose and fell. She began to pant, pupils dilating as she set up a rhythm.

“Not so fast.” He chided her. “I intend to enjoy this for a while.”

He tweaked a tender nipple as admonishment with the hand that held the whiskey. The little noise of protestation she made in the back of his throat made his cock twitch within her but she slowed as he had commanded.

“Leaving you alone today was a mistake. One I won't make again, eh?” He told her as he watched her begin to sweat with the exertion of the movement he demanded. The skin above the steaming water was beaded with sweat. Her knees and elbows were stilled scraped from where he'd taken her on the porch, which he knew must make kneeling uncomfortable. “You're my fucking property when your clothes come off, eh? And I say when they come off.”

“Yes, Tommy.” She panted.

“Your glands, that sore little cunt, they all belong to me.”

“Yes, Tommy.”

When he could resist no longer he put aside the whiskey and cigarette and took her by the hips in a bruising grip. He set the pace he wanted, fucking up into her and making her cry out as he bottomed out in her, flexing himself so that the sensitive little fold of flesh at the crux of her was ground against the bone at the root of him. She came first, a fluttering of bruised muscles and a little cry and then he was emptying into her with a roar, fingers tightening on her and pushing himself deep within her.

He hadn't knotted her but he didn't move to let her shift off of him when they had both regained their senses.

He traced a hand over her bruises, the torn glands, heedless of the way she winced as he touched the tender flesh. Perhaps the girl herself was not his, not something he had the right to, but her body, he realized, was. If either of them had thought that he could help her through that first Heat and not feel that he was her Alpha and she was his Omega, that thought was now only a distant memory. He would respect the fact that she had not bargained for her autonomy, respect the limits of what she had given him.

Outside of the bedroom, when her clothes were on, he would do his best not to enforce the desires of an Alpha on her. But what he had said was true: with her clothes off he did consider her body his property. Her pleasure, her pain, orgasms, tears, screams of ecstasy or pleading for mercy, they were all his to decide and to savor.

“It's not too late to ask for restraint.” He made himself tell her.

Her laugh was a hysterical little giggle as she reached for the whiskey glass. “I rather think it might be.”

They drove down to London the next day. Tommy had called ahead to say what time they would be arriving so Ada, Polly and Charlie were waiting for them in the front parlor. Both women stood as they came in, looking her over from head to toe. If she hadn't been so nervous, Annabelle might have laughed. She hadn't realized that the piercing, appraising look had been a family trait.

Tommy stood in the doorway with a possessive hand around her waist. “Right, Ada, Polly, this is Annabelle Grant. Annabelle this is Ada Thorne, my sister, and Polly Gray my Aunt. The little one on the couch is Charlie. Charlie, come say hello to Miss Grant.”

Charlie stood and came forward. With a little bow he said, “pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss Grant.”

Annabelle smiled. “Please to make yours, little sir.” She said, returning his formality. To the women she said, “and very good to meet you both Mrs. Thorne and Mrs. Gray.”

“Ada and Polly will show you the house and settle you in, make sure you're comfortable.”

Without another word he turned down the hall and left her standing in the doorway.

Ada smiled. “Thrown you to the fucking wolves already, eh? Typical of Thomas, I'm afraid. But don't worry, we won't bite, come in and make yourself comfortable. I'll ring for some tea, shall I?”

Annabelle wasn't sure what she had been expecting Tommy's sister and aunt to look like, but the two fashionably dressed women standing before her, were certainly not anything she could have imagined. They did not dress like anyone Annabelle had ever known, certainly. It was not yet noon and already Polly Gray wore heels that Annabelle wouldn't attempt for an evening soiree and the necklace Ada was wearing certainly cost a thousand pounds or more.

“It was very kind of you both to come to greet us and welcome me to the home.” She said demurely. Then, biting her lip she added, “and I thank you Miss Throne, for your help... previously.”

“I had wondered if you would remember. No need to speak of that though.”

“I thought we could take tea in the garden.” Polly said. “Enjoy the fresh air.”

They showed her to the back garden where a table was set for their lunch. A maid brought out fresh cucumber sandwiches and a well-brewed cup of tea, which Ada poured for them all. The china was rather too good for a casual afternoon with only the family present and nearly brand new, not a chip on the gold-lined margins of the cup.

Tommy had said that it was easy to see what kind of man he was, and he had been right. Everything about these people screamed that they had not been born to this life. The accents, the way that Ada poured the tea and Polly buttered a slice of bread. Even the elegance of the house itself, the newness of all the furniture and the exact way all the rooms were arranged, were indications that this generation alone had had a hand in planning it. These were not, as her mother would say, 'her people.' And yet, she found them easier to talk to than a hundred other people she'd met at elegant parties.

Or perhaps it was Annabelle herself who was different. There was no utility in pretending that she didn't smell as if their brother and nephew hadn't fucked her for nearly a week straight. She reeked of him, his claim on her, and the high neck of the gown only just concealed the healing bruises he'd left. She was not the girl she'd always been either. No longer one of the young Omegas of proper breeding and station who was to be protected. There was no use in pretending she was shocked by something if she wasn't. And she found the new role surprisingly freeing.

“I bought some clothes for you,” Ada told her. “I thought you might want to have some dresses here of your own. I don't know what style you like but I think I got your size about right. If you like any of them, I'm sure you can have them altered.”

“That was very kind, thank you.”

“And some make up and other essentials as well. This afternoon I can take you to the shops to get anything I forgot.”

When the tea was finished, Polly took her upstairs to show her the bedroom and the clothes that had been purchased for her, while Ada helped Charlie get dressed for a golf lesson.

Grace had been killed before Tommy bought the house so the closets had not needed to be emptied of her things first. Polly had been extravagant but gone for substance over quantity and though there were quite a few, the dresses did not fill even a quarter of the space.

“Ada wasn't sure your taste so she bought only what you'll need in the next few weeks, until you arrange more yourself or send for your own from home.” The Alpha told her.

“Thank you very much Mrs. Gray.”

The older woman smiled. “Since you're to be married to Thomas, you can call me Aunt Polly.”

“Alright, Aunt Polly.”

She laughed at the way the younger woman blushed to say it. “Oh you musn't imagine that you're deceiving me. I know all my nephew's business. I know you agreed to marry him as a pretense, to let Mosley think he's won. Who do you think drew up your marriage contract after all?”

The girl's eyes widened. “You did?”

“Yes, favorable terms for you, wouldn't you agree?”

“Indeed. Thank you.”

Polly took a small box from her jacket pocket and opened it. “I picked out your engagement ring as well. I hope diamonds are to your taste.”

The ring was extraordinary, a brilliant center diamond flanked with two emeralds. “I thought the blue might match your eyes.”

“It's the most beautiful ring I think I've ever seen, thank you. But too much... as you said, it's not as if he's really marrying me. I mean, we will be married but it won't be... that is it won't be love.”

The older woman reached out a hand to cup her cheek. “Doesn't mean you don't deserve a big, fucking ring, now does it? You're doing a brave thing, a good thing that will cost you quite a bit. Oswald Mosley thinks people like me and Thomas are less than we are because of our blood. He thinks that you can be bought, sold and shipped like cargo because of your designation. He's the fucking devil himself.”

Annabelle nodded. “Yes.”

“But my nephew is not the easiest man in the world to... accommodate.” She tilted the girl's chin to one side and pulled back the neck of her gown to glance in at the bruises littered over her glands and collarbone. “Nor will you enjoy the infamy your brother and he are going to drum up around your name, putting you square into a political debate you won't even be allowed to vote on.”

The older woman smiled. “Thank goodness Aunt Polly is here to protect you.”

When she was dressed she took Annabelle downstairs to Thomas's study. “I'm going to have Ada take Annabelle to the hairdresser. She'll be in the papers this week and will need to look her best.” She announced.

“Would it not be easier to have the girls come here to do it?”

“She can't stay a shut in forever, Thomas. Besides the place is very discrete and I'll take some security with them, of course.”

“Alright Poll.”

“Would you like to tell your fiancee how much you like the ring I picked out for her?”

He took off his glasses as Polly took Annabelle's hand and held it out for him. “Very nice, Polly. You like it, I hope, Annabelle?”

“It's beautiful, thank you.”

When Annabelle left with Ada, Polly did not go with them. Instead his aunt waited, staring down at her nephew. “What, Poll?” Tommy asked.

“You couldn't have taken it a little bit easier on her, eh?” Polly asked, pointedly. “Her neck looks a ruin. No doubt her thighs and the rest of her aren't much better.”

Tommy took his cigarettes from his breast pocket and lit one. “Twas her Heat Poll, not my Rut. She defined the terms.”

“She defined the terms? That nineteen-year-old wanted you to make her neck into raw fucking meat?”

He took a drag, then to her surprise, pointed the hand with the cigarette at her in a gesture of triumph. “When they get back, you can tell Ada that she owes me a pound.”

“What do you mean?”

“When we were teenagers, I bet her a pound that you'd never slept with an Omega.”

Polly tried to keep the smile from her face. “What kind of fucking teenagers bet on who their aunt has or hasn't fucked?”

“Your blood relations, apparently.”

“But what does that have to do with anything?”

“If you'd ever Rutted and Omega through Heat then you'd know that the Omega asks and the Alpha gives. If she hadn't asked me, I wouldn't have been as rough as I was.”

Polly considered that for a moment. “Despite all my best efforts Thomas, it has been impossible not to hear about your exploits, from Lizzie, from the other girls you've fucked throughout the years. None of them ever described you as the kind of man who waits to be asked.”

“It's different with an Omega. I don't deny that when I'm paying for it, with a Beta, I want it my own way. But not the same thing when it's an Omega. Grace always wanted it gently, so I was gentle.”

“So what? This one just happens to want it just exactly as _un-gentle_ as you do? By bloody coincidence?”

He took a drag. “When I met Grace she was working in The Garrison as cover for her job as a spy for the crown. She had had to make her own way in the world and she'd learned to do it. When we married she'd already been with another Alpha and been widowed.”

“What about it?”

“She knew what she liked.”

Polly shook her head. “What do you mean?”

“You're going to fucking hate this part Polly.” He said, rubbing his eyes with one hand, almost unwilling to say the words.

“What?”

“There's a reason that Alphas who can afford it, men of her class, would want a girl like her, one that's been properly Heat fasted.”

“And what fucking reason is that?”

“The point of an Omega isn't to _take_ pleasure, it's to fucking _give_ it.”

Polly's laugh was derisive. “That is an old crock of shit, Thomas. You sound like a reactionary fucking designists talking like that.”

“I'm not saying that she wants to cook me meals or that she'll get turned on from rub my fucking feet at the end of the day, Polly. The problems come when Alphas can't make out the difference between the bedroom and everywhere else in the world.” He said with a sigh. “But when she's in Heat, when she's aroused, she can tell what I want. And she's too goddamn innocent to know not to ask me for it.”

Polly's mouth was a firm line. “You're saying that she wants a rough fuck, because you want to fuck her rough?”

“Essentially.”

“And you think, what, this absolves you of responsibility for taking that teenage idealist for all she's worth?”

“No, but I think it's the kinder thing for her.”

“What do you mean?”

He sighed. “Let's imagine, for a moment, that I adopt your philosophy. That I don't take exactly what I want from her, that I _go easy on her_ as you suggested. I hold myself back and don't bite her when she asks or I feel like it. What do you think the end result of that will be? She gets a few less bites and goes on about her day?”

“And why not?”

“Because, Polly, her pleasure is my pleasure. Ask Ada about how she was, begging the night I found her on the docks. Imagine that but intentionally frustrated, with someone giving them stimulation, but not enough for satisfaction. Can you imagine what torture that would be?”

Polly took a drag on her cigarette and considered. For the first time her face seemed to relax. She favored him with a small smile. “Sounds like a philosophic nightmare.”

He laughed. “The word you're looking for Polly, is solipsism. I'll find you a book on it, if you remind me.”

“And what happens when the two of you divorce then?” Polly asked. “The next Alpha who fucks her, what will she ask him for?”

His knuckles whitened a bit at that thought but he didn't rebuke her for saying something so liable to provoke him, fresh as her last heat was. “No way to tell. Perhaps, perhaps she'll always have my tastes, if she had some of her own natural inclination towards them. She's, well, she's a particularly pleasing Omega so I hope, for her sake, she is able to adjust.”

Polly's grin turned sardonic. “Best not to ask what you'd hope, for your own sake.”

“Best not.” He agreed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Question: do I know how problematic this chapter is?
> 
> Answer: Yup
> 
> Question: do I care?
> 
> Answer: Yup
> 
> Question: will I ever quit my bullshit?
> 
> Answer: Nope
> 
> My rational (rationalization?) for the conversation with Polly: 1) it's fucking hot 2) it's fucking hot 3) it's fucking hot. I have no other defense because I find it otherwise indefensible. I consider myself a feminist but I honest to god find the idea of Annabelle as an almost physical manifestation of Tommy's desires too good to resist. I can't help myself. I love the idea that she wants what he wants, because it's what he wants, and that, the longer they are together the more difficult it will be for her to go without him. One of the fun things about the A/B/O trope is that it offers this kind of magical bond between strangers, that they “can't help themselves” when it comes to how they are drawn together. It is important to me that it always be clear that they both have a choice, that Tommy ultimately is responsible for his actions and his promises (Annabelle too), and that there is parity between them, that they are equals outside of the bedroom. But you know, other than that, I just want her to be his perfect little sex puppet: irresistible and custom made to please him. Anyone else feeling that?
> 
> /rantover
> 
> Anywho, as ever, thank you, thank you, thank you for your reviews!!!! More than I deserve by half! This chapter was a bit more heavy on the philosophy than normal but don't worry, I'm back on my usual grind of nonstop disgusting filth next chapter... Tommy is going to make his feelings known about the idea of “the next alpha who fucks her” being put in his head. And then we'll meet the Grant family! Please, please, please as ever let me know your thoughts! Reviews are LIFE you guys!


	8. Chapter 8

Though it was difficult to admit to himself, it was clear that Polly's comment about 'the next Alpha who fucks her', had affected Tommy. Half hard at his desk it was work to focus on accounts, ledgers, phone calls and the mountain of business that had built up during the days he had been taking care of her Heat.

When Ada dropped her back off at the house near dinnertime he heard her come in through the door. He listened to her walk up the stairs to their bedroom and for a moment fought to put the thought from his mind. Even if he believed what he said to Polly about his pleasure being her pleasure, surely there were limits to how much he ought to indulge them both, weren't there?

He put down the pen he was holding, and went up the stairs after her.

She startled when he came in the door, whirling around to face him, but smiled when she saw it was him. “I'm sorry Tommy, it's only, I'm not used to sharing a bedroom I think. Not used to people coming in without knocking.”

“Would you like me to knock?”

“No, no, don't be ridiculous. I'll grow accustomed to it.”

She was dressed in the light, flower-print, summer dress-- not one of Grace's, but something Ada had bought for her. Her hair was up in pins and her nails were newly ruby red. Her shoes and stockings lay beside the dresser in a heap and he could smell perfumed steam from the bathroom, a light floral scent. She looked at him shyly as he let his eyes rake over her. “Is there... something you wanted? I was just about to take a bath.”

“If I'm not done with you before the water is cold, I'll run you another.”

“What do you mean?”

“Kneel down, Annabelle, make it pretty for me.”

Her eyes widened. “What...”

“ _Kneel_ , Annabelle.” He didn't use his Command voice but he put a bit more menace in his tone.

She swallowed and then, bent her knees and sank slowly to them.

“Legs apart and put your hands on your knees. Don't move your hands unless I tell you to.”

He moved forward slowly, until he was standing almost with her face pressed to his trousers, towering over her. He ran a hand through her hair fondly, but let it rest there, not controlling her yet but letting her feel that he could. He could see her trembling but she didn't dare meet his eyes.

“Look up at me, sweetheart. I want to see your eyes.”

She obeyed, turning a wide, frightened expression up towards him. She looked scared but her pulse was racing and he could smell the slick beginning to gather beneath the dress.

“What is it you think is about to happen to you next, Annabelle?” His voice was low, rough.

“You're... you're going to have me... please you with my mouth.” She stuttered, blushing.

“Clever girl.”

He took his time undoing his belt and opening his trousers, letting her anxiety and excitement about the task both build. He took himself out, already nearly completely hard at the prospect but stroked himself twice to make sure. “Open your mouth.”

He placed himself on the flat of her tongue and held there for just a moment, fixing the image in his mind for the rest of his days. Her wide blue eyes, those pink lips parted, and him right in the middle of it. “Wrap your lips around it now, and use your tongue over the head.” He instructed.

She obeyed, swirling her tongue over the head and closing her lips. He could smell that she was soaking her panties in slick.

“Now slide up and down, far down as you can. Use your tongue along the bottom as you go. Careful with your teeth.”

It took her a few tries to get the bobbing motion of her head correct, coordinating it with the movement of her tongue proved trickier still. But the enthusiasm and inexperience were charming. The way she tried to please him made his Alpha pride swell with pleasure. Her hands gripped the skirt over her thighs, fluttering like little caught birds but not moving to push him away even as he began to thrust into her mouth a bit and grip her hair a bit harder to keep her where he wanted her. The thought that she allowed him to do this made the muscles of his stomach clench deep and his cock stiffened and jerked in her mouth.

Perhaps the converse of what he'd told Polly was also true. That her pleasing him was his real pleasure. He'd have to find that book on solipsism after all.

He let her experiment, trying to get the movement more practiced. But finally he could take no more, needing release. His hand, which had been resting on her head, gripped it firmly and he began to pump into her mouth, picking up the speed quickly. He didn't push her all the way down, that was a lesson for another day and one he intended to teach her well and thoroughly. For now he was too close to the edge. He felt himself tightening at the crux of his cock.

“I'm going to come in your mouth sweetheart, swallow it down, like a good girl.”

He tilted her head back and let his fingers curl in her hair even tighter as he spilled over into her mouth. He fought not to close his eyes as pleasure engulfed him, rising up like a black tide. The sight of her was unforgettable. Though he had been as gentle as he could bring himself to be, a hint of a tear had formed at the corner of one eye and slipped down. He could feel her gulping as he unloaded onto her tongue.

When he was spent, he pulled out of her mouth with a pop. “Clean me off with your tongue, sweetheart.”

He didn't let go of her hair: taking her head as he liked. Obediently she licked the remnants of his seed off him, suckling and licking where he guided her. When he was satisfied he was he tucked himself back away.

He caught her chin between his fingers, tilting her head up to his face. “I can smell your slick girl, smell how fucking needy you are. You better smell the same when you come to dinner. If I think you've touched what belongs to me, I'll take you over my knee with a belt until you scream. Do you understand me?”

She nodded. “Yes, Alpha.”

He bent and gave her a fond kiss. “Good girl.”

Tommy went back downstairs and found his focus remarkably improved.

She had obeyed. That was easy enough to see when she came to dinner.

She smelled it when she came to dinner, more than that, she looked it. The scent rolling off of her was profound, thick, rich and sweet like the smell of fertile earth in the summer heat. Her pupils were blown wide and she was flushed, nearly panting. He pulled out her chair and she sat, pressing her legs together. “Good evening, sweetheart.”

“Good evening.” He mouth trembled a bit on the words.

He ate with gusto while she only picked at her food. He didn't speak, knowing she wouldn't be able to concentrate on much until she came. They made it through the soup. She drank down the wine that came with the main course, beef wellington and new boiled potatoes, almost as soon as Martha filled it. The food was excellent but not distracting enough that he didn't notice when she began to trail her fingers over the glands at her neck, caressing them and the bites he had left at her collarbone. She pushed her fingers to the gland in her neck, her thighs pressing together under the table as she bit her lip, struggling to find the razor edge of pleasure that would never come with out just a bit more stimulation. She pressed the two glands at her wrist together until she gasped and bit down on her lip.

He put down his fork and watched as she tormented herself. It wasn't enough to put her in danger of orgasm but it was enough to stimulate, to put her painfully, achingly close. This is what she'd been doing since he left her in the room. The thought made him instantly hard. She'd been up there, obediently not touching her clit, nothing that would bring her any release but still keeping herself aroused, just on the edge, unable to stop herself from the self-torture. Like scratching an itch, it had only made things worse for her.

“Martha.” He said to the girl standing to the side, waiting to refill their glasses. “Go back to the kitchen until you're called for. I think your Mistress is trying to tell me she needs a good fucking.”

“Yes, Mr. Shelby.” Martha's voice was a squeak.

He hardly waited for the door to close before he reached for her.

He took her by the hair, pulling her up into a claiming inferno of a kiss. One hand went around her waist, pushing her back in strides that made her stumble they were so large, until her back was against the wall of the dinning room.

He lifted her by her waist up so her legs straddled his hips, pressing her core against the length of his cock, straining against his trousers. With her pinned as she was between his hips and the wall he got one hand free to fumble with his belt. He hastily pushed down the trousers and flipped up her skirt. The fucking darling hadn't worn panties he realized with an insane, throbbing moment of lust.

He plunged into her without further ceremony, thrusting in to the hilt. She screamed. He hadn't prepared her, hadn't stretched her with his fingers, and she was so fucking tight around him, despite how sopping with slick she was. But he took no mercy on her, fucking her hard and fast against the dinning room wall. With each thrust he made sure to let her feel the full weight of him and bury himself deep, snapping his hips into her with abandon. She clung to him, legs around his waist and one elbow over his broad shoulders.

One hand gripped her ass. It was large enough to span the delightful globe and spread down onto that slender thigh, keeping her spread and vulnerable to his thrusts. The other hand he tangled in her hair, jerking back her to expose the column of her throat to his tongue and teeth.

He curled his fingers in the neck of her dress, jerking it down and sending a spray of little buttons across the floor. He pushed down the cups of her brassiere to expose those perfect little handfuls, bending his head to suck one into his mouth, even as his fingers flicked over it's twin. He moaned, clenching around him as he pressed his tongue into the hard, pebbled tip.

She came with another scream, even louder than the first. _Just in case any of the servants might have any doubts about what we're doing in here_ , he thought, though he didn't bother to deny the fact that he liked the idea of the household knowing he was claiming her. He came shortly after, spilling into her with a roar.

He held her against the wall, cock still throbbing within her as they both panted and the world came back into focus. He jerked her head to the side, lathing his tongue over the gland at her neck. “Annabelle, who does this belong to?” He asked, voice soft and deadly. “Who do your glands belong to?”

She swallowed. “You, Tommy.”

“That's right.” His smile was sinister, pressed against her gland.

“What did I say would happen if you touched what belonged to me, without my permission?”

He felt her cunt clench on him at the prospect despite the little shiver of fear that went up her spine. “You would take me over your knee with a belt, until I screamed. Please, Tommy, I didn't mean...” She began to beg.

He sank his teeth into her gland, tearing the skin anew and bringing her to another small, shuddering orgasm and babbling incoherence. _I'll tell you when I want to hear your pleading, Omega._ Her muscles spasmed against him and she let out another cry that turned into a little sob as he worried the gland with his teeth, licking and caressing the tender flesh. When her orgasm was spent, he slid out of her, letting her down to the floor. He pulled up his trousers and straightened the lapels of his jacket, settling the cloth back into place. His hair had fallen forward with the effort of fucking her but he swept it back into place with a practiced sweep of his hand.

Annabelle herself was still leaning on the wall, as if she might slide down against it in another moment. She looked dazed, a little like she was going into a Heat. Her eyes were wide, pupils black, and a little trickle of blood still ran from one gland. Her had slid back down between them but the front of her dress still lay open, breasts still bare.

“Best to continue this in a bit more privacy, eh sweetheart. Will you walk or do you want I should carry you?”

“I can walk.”

“Cover yourself up, girl. I'll not have the servants see my property.”

Her fingers went to the front of her dress, drawing the edges back together as best she could.

He took her by the nape of the neck and led her down the hall to his study. He sat in the chair behind his desk and pushed her to her knees in front of him. He pushed the dress down a bit, making sure her tits were bare to him. With his free hand he opened his zipper and took himself out.

This time she didn't need to be coached but he was in no mood to let her practice. He brought her mouth to his cock and pushed her down, pumping into her mouth with ferocity. Upstairs he had let her mostly control her own movements, allowing her to try to please him. Now he only wanted to cum again, to give himself a clearer head for what was to come. He made no pretension he wasn't fucking her mouth. He let himself push her down a bit further, until she gagged on him, retching and pulling back instinctively. “Don't pull back, girl. Relax your throat, it will make it easier on you.”

She gulped, trying to obey.

He tweaked one nipple. “Eyes up. When my cock is in your mouth I want to see them.”

Her lashes flicked up and he could see tears welling a bit as he pushed her down again but this time she mastered herself, didn't struggle. She made it about halfway down his shaft though before he relented, letting her back up to breath and gasp. “Use your tongue.” She remembered the next time, flicking it across the seam of his cock as he pushed her back down.

He could feel her getting slick as he he pumped her up and down by her hair, dripping down onto the carpet. He came into her mouth for the second time that day and she swallowed him down obediently.

She was panting, mouth open and looking up at him. Her eyes flicked nervously to his belt and he could see the pulse at her neck pounding.

“Not too late, Annabelle,” he said softly. “Not to late to ask for restraint.”

She hesitated.

“You could beg if you like. Beg me prettily enough and I might change my mind about even wanting it.”

She bit her lip. Now her eyes were focused entirely on the belt and he could smell the apprehension on her. Slowly, she shook her head.

“Don't want to beg?”

“Don't want restraint.”

Slowly, he unbuckled the belt and drew it off, enjoying the ways her eyes followed his movements with the focus of a deer watching a wolf grow nearer. He folded it over once in his hand then nodded to one of his spread knees. “Bend over then”

Shakily she rose to her feet and bent to lie over his thigh. He bent her over further, pushing her head between his thighs so only the tips of her toes could reach the floor. He ran a hand over the curves of her breasts, palming them and running each nipple between his fingers with an idle, possessive movement. He gathers both wrists in one large hand, pulling her back until she arched prettily for him, exaggerating the lordosis of her spine. She was trembling a bit, from the rough use of her mouth and fear of what was to come and he gave her a moment to master herself before he spoke.

“I'm a gambling man, eh, sweetheart.” He told her, running the hand that held the belt casually over the smooth backs of her thighs, lazily tracing a pattern that made the hair on her legs prickle in anticipation. “And if I had to lay odds, I'd give any at all, that you've never been hit before.”

He felt her head shake in the affirmative. Her breath was hot against his thigh.

“Never even a school mistress with a ruler across the knuckles?”

This time the shake was the opposite direction.

He let his head fall back in apparent pleasure. First one to fuck her, first one to spank her, first one into her mouth. What had he done in his life to deserve this as a reward? Nothing at all. But he'd never been one to give back something, once it belonged to him, rightfully paid for or not.

“Having seen you take my cock and my bite... somehow I think you're going to be a natural at this.” He let his fingers trail up to her slit, gratified to find that, despite her fear, her slick was still flowing. He teased her lightly but did not reward her by pushing in a finger.

“It will be ten lashes. More if you're not crying by the end of them.”

He struck her with the full force of his arm and she startled, jerking in his arms. He had been prepared for that though and held her firmly. It was the sound that had surprised her, for he knew well enough that the pain of a blow is delayed, particularly in those unused to receiving them. As a kindness he gave her the next before she could fully register what was happening. When the the sensation finally reached her she gasped, a shivering little sob escaping her lips.

She was sobbing steadily by the third blow though, no need to worry about that. It took nearly half an hour as he waited for her get back into what he deemed proper position between blows. “I'll not administer a blow unless you ask me for it.” He told her after the fifth stroke. “Tilt your ass up and make it presentable for me.”

When the last blow fell she was sobbing and he was hard again. He lifted her by her arms and bent her over the desk. This time he really did part her folds and plunge in, kicking her legs wide to make room to plunge in. Her flesh was raw and tender as he drove in and she screamed, sobbing harder, but coming almost at once. He took only a bit longer to spill over, filling her up.

When he had filled her and the roar of pleasure had receded from his ears he withdrew from her carefully. He fixed her brassiere back in place, then bent and picked up her up, bridal style.

He carried her up the stairs to his bed and laid her gently down in it. He went about undressing and brushing his teeth, aware that she had started sobbing quietly again. He climbed into bed and pulled her against him. “I'm pleased with you, Annabelle. You pleased me well today.” He told her in the dark, pressed against her stem to stern.

Feeling like a real bastard, he brought his hand up to the Mating gland at her neck, running his fingers over it gently. She settled immediately. Faster than any sedative, she gentled under the touch. He'd pushed her far enough to the space in her mind that occupied Heat he was sure she would barely remember what happened now, except as a series of fragmented images. So what was the harm right? He bent forward and pressed his lips to the gland. Like every inch of her, but particularly her cunt and her glands, it tasted like paradise. But this... this he had not imagined before. Warmth, heat, sweetness poured into his mouth just from the light touch of his lips. The smell of her seemed to seep through that skin, his mouth and right down to the heart of him. He licked gland and felt her limbs slacken in his arms.

What would it feel like to bite it, ripping her open to the very core of her?

He was hard again, for what felt like the uncountable time that day. But she was already nearly asleep in his arms. He contented himself with pull her to his chest, settling his erection between supple but cheeks. He could always wake her up a bit early tomorrow to fuck her before he went about his day.

He did wake her up early.

He turned her over, sleepy and pliable, on to her stomach. Her hair fell down in her face, blinding her. She could feel him though as he rolled on top of her, legs trapping hers between, arms on either side of her, pinning her down. He found her hands with each of his, knitting his fingers between hers and pressing them helpless into the sheets. “What, Thomas, what...” She murmured, still only half awake as he nudged her open with the blunt tip of him.

He turned the question into a moan, plunging into her from behind, fucking her down into the mattress. He started slow but made her take the full length of him with every stroke. He braced himself over her, forearms braced on either side of her, muscles rippling with the strain of the punishing power of his strokes. The tightness in his belly matched the exquisite feeling of her smooth, gripping passage.

“God, please...please... take pity.”

He pushed her legs apart a bit, to give her a bit of reprieve, but he did not slow his pace or power. He pushed her head down, pulling her hips back to give himself a better angle and came deep inside her as she spasmed around him, arching and begging.

When he was finished he rolled off of her and went to light a cigarette. He went about the motions of getting dressed as she lay, curled onto one side, watching him through the screen of her hair. “We'll leave to visit your brother's house around noon, I'll tell Martha that you want eggs, toast and bacon. Be down for it in half an hour.”

He pushed her hair back to give her a kiss. “You'll want to bathe I think, if you don't want your mother and brother to know I've come recently on your glands.”

She did bathe, washed her hair and had it plaited up into a modest style. She wore a dark skirt and bright, floral shirt with a neck high enough to hide her glands. She came downstairs but only ate a fraction of what she had served. The Alpha part of him wanted to tell her to finish her plate, that she was still recovering from the days of starvation and she needed a bit more plumpness before she could carry a viable pregnancy. But he knew that was insane and pushed the urge to the back of his mind.

The address she gave took them to a street right in the heart of Belgravia. He pulled the car to a stop in front of one of the characteristic white stucco facades of the neighborhood. He got out and came around to open her door. She slipped under his arm, slipping a hand under his jacket, almost as if she were afraid to return home.

She did not ring the doorbell, nor knock, rather she opened the door as if she knew it would be unlocked and went in. “Patty?” She called. “Mama?”

She turned to him. “I think we've come a bit early.”

She led him down the hall to a small sitting room where an Alpha of about Annabelle's age sat reading the paper, an Omega who was surely her mother, sat at an easel with a watercolor of some flowers. “Mama, that looks wonderful.” She said, a perfunctory sound to break the silence and alert the room to their presence.

Both the Alpha and the Omega were on their feet in a trice. The Omega got to her first, collapsing into Annabelle's arms, tears already flowing freely. “Oh Annie... Annie... I didn't believe it when Patrick said you would come!” Her mother said, pressing the girl to her breast. For a moment it seemed certain that the two of them would sink to the ground for Annabelle was crying too, clinging to her mother and sobbing harder than Tommy had ever seen her.

“Mama... mama... I'm alright.” She managed to choke out through sobbing breathes. “It's all fine... all fixed mama.”

Then it was her mother's turns to hold her up as she sobbed. Her mother caressed her hair, stroking it gently and gentling her down.

The Alpha, her brother it was easy to see, looking on at the two women with a tense anguish. Tommy knew the feeling well. It was one thing to hear Annabelle sob when she took his knot, his cock, even his lash the night before. It was torture to hear tears he had not caused and could not stop.

Patrick put his hand on his sisters shoulder. “Annie, you'll wind her up now, carrying on like that.”

Instantly the girl's sobs relented. The white-knuckled fingers on her mother's gown slackened slightly and she began to soothe herself. In a moment her tears had dried and she was stroking the older Omega, gentling her down instead of taking comfort. Tommy wasn't sure he liked the idea of her having to clam her own mother after such an ordeal. It was she, after all, who had been put in a fucking crate, wasn't it? She who had endured a kidnapping. But at least she wasn't sobbing anymore, at least he had time to think.

She kissed her mother's forehead and the two pulled apart enough for her to embrace her brother. “Hello Patrick.”

“Annie.” He pressed a kiss to her cheek. “I'm glad you're home.”

When he let her go, she turned to Tommy.

“Mama, Patrick, this is Thomas Shelby.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry the update took so long! But at least I'm back on my same ole trash grind! Please let me know what you think! I particularly love it when you tell me what specific moments you enjoy, what you hope to see next, ect!


	9. Chapter 9

Patrick Grant was a rather short Alpha, with stocky limbs and rough, honest features. He had the same patrician nose that his sister had inherited (from their father, one glance at their mother told him) but no other of her delicate features. He offered Tommy a thick hand and shook it once rather too firmly, though not as if he intended insult or provocation by it, but simply as though this was how he shook any man's hand.

Patrick sized him up for a moment, then said, “I suppose we should be thanking you Mr. Shelby, for returning our Annie to us, hale and whole.”

In the days after her heat had broken Annabelle had called her brother to tell him where she was, what had happened (or a version thereof) and that she intended to return. The call had lasted an hour or more. That close to her Heat it had felt like a provocation, the idea of her placating another Alpha, even her brother. Though Tommy had forced himself not to listen in, he had found himself unable not to stand with his arms braced against the door frame until he heard her put the receiver back on the phone. At which point he had opened the door and come in to lift her onto the desk in his study where she stood, spreading her legs and taking her savagely. He had opened the bites at either neck and both her wrists before he'd been satisfied.

But whatever she'd said on the phone, she must have been convincing. The other Alpha did not smell as though he were spoiling for a fight, as Tommy had half expected.

“She should never have been taken from your family in the first place, Mr. Grant.”

“On that point, I couldn't agree more, Mr. Shelby.”

Her mother took his hand. “Annie never said on the phone you were so handsome, Mr. Shelby. We are so grateful to you for having rescued her.”

Despite her age, she was a beautiful woman, like her daughter all slender features that marked her designation. She had given Annabelle her heart-shaped face and full lips, the delicate but slightly too-long nose was well. The bright blue eyes,like the nose, must have come from her father however as both she and her brother had a matching set but her mother's were a warm brown.

“I've asked for tea in the garden today since it's so nice.” To Annabelle she said, “Take Mr. Shelby's hat, there's a good girl. Then come with me to tell Mary you've arrived and she can have the girls bring out the tea. Patty, you'll show Mr. Shelby the the garden, won't you.”

“Yes, mama.”

She took his hat and hung it up, disappearing into the large, stately house, led by the hand by her mother.

Patrick Grant regarded him with a measuring look, then said, “you can come with me into the parlor first. It will be an hour or more until mama let's go of Annie's hand I judge, the way she was clinging to it. And only then will she start in on poor Mary's nerves about getting the tea just right for you. In the meantime, I can offer you a drink.”

He showed Tommy into the parlor. “What is your taste, Mr. Shelby.”

“Whiskey, neat.”

“Irish or Scotch?”

“Doesn't matter.” He said, deciding he had the whole rest of his life to tell Patrick Grant the truth.

He poured them each a generous serving. He gestured for Tommy to take one of the comfortable leather seats at a low table and he took the other. He sat with his legs spread leaning forward. Tommy waited for a moment, then said, “I suppose you'd like to hear the story then, away from her mother.”

“Yes.”

Annie must have already told him, which meant that either Grant didn't believe she would tell him the whole truth, or he didn't think that Tommy would. He wondered which would damn him more in the man's mind. He took out his cigarette case and offered the other man one. When they both had a cigarette in hand he started speaking.

“There is a certain scrap metal yard in Birmingham, owned by a man who I consider my family. He is related distantly by blood but has always acted as uncle to me. I sometimes take shipments from all over England via the canal that travels through his yard.

“Last Tuesday evening I was taking a shipment quite late, past midnight I believe. It was intended to be payment for some coal I sent to a businessman I know in Glasgow. The men unloading it said that the last crate felt empty, so I opened it. Your sister was inside, in Heat.” He hesitated. He could see the other man's knuckles were white on his glass but he would want to know, if it had been Ada. “She'd been bound, sedated, by whoever put her in there.”

“Jesus fucking Christ.” Patrick swore, running a hand over his face.

“If it gives you any comfort, Mr. Grant, the men who put her into the crate, those that took her from your house, are already dead.”

Patrick's face, already sallow, paled further. “What?”

Tommy took a drag on the cigarette. “I had the man from Glasgow put their bodies on the next shipment down, burned them in the scrap metal yard.”

“You had them killed?”

“Yes.” He was careful to meet the other Alpha's gaze as he said it. This man needed to know who Tommy was, what he would do for his sister. Beyond Mosley, beyond reasonable plans and rational schemes the Alpha's need to have his claim recognized. A transaction between two men for the body of a woman. An acknowledgment that the girl belonged to him now. He might have hated it, if he hadn't needed it.

“Anyone who touched her in that state, I had them killed.”

Patrick swallowed. “Annie said that you didn't have anything to do with her being taken.”

“No. If I had known about it, I would have tried to prevent it.”

“I suppose I really should thank you, if that's true.”

“I meant what I said at the door, Mr. Grant. She should never have been taken.”

Patrick's jaw clenched. “Annie also said... that you had managed not to Mark her, during her Heat.”

“That is correct.”

“You proposed to her to preserve her reputation then?”

“Not exactly.”

“What do you mean?”

“Did your sister mention, by any chance, that there is something else I need to speak to you about?”

“Annie said that you had a business proposition for me Mr. Shelby, one she didn't wish to discuss when someone might be listening. She said you would say more about it to me in person.”

Both of them had finished their cigarettes and Patrick stood, going to a nearby cabinet and opening it. He took out a fine cigar box and selected two, snipping the ends and passing one to Tommy to light.

“It's not business, Mr. Grant, not at least if you mean something that is likely to be profitable.” He said. “It's a request from the Home Office in fact, to do some work for them.”

His eyebrows raised. “The Home Office?”

“Yes.”

The younger man considered for a long moment. “Alright.”

“I've invited a man called Oswald Mosley to the wedding party. At some time during the evening he is going to approach you about joining the BUF on behalf of Scotland. The Home Office would like you to accept his offer.”

“I know who Mosley is and I've heard of the BUF. That's your party too if I'm not mistaken.” Patrick said.

“Yes.”

“But you make this request on behalf of the Home Office, not your party?”

“Yes.”

“You want me as a spy then? A fellow spy, I assume.”

“Yes.”

Patrick carded a hand through his hair and grimaced. “I've heard Mosley talk. He sounds more like a socialist than anything else. I actually like what he says about the bankers taking too much, that the working people should not continue to subsidize them as they continue to gamble to get richer. Why is the home office interested in him?”

“Have you ever trained dogs before, Mr. Grant.”

“We keep them on the estate, for hunting.”

“I bet your man uses a whistle for them eh? You've used one too then so you know it's makes pitch so high that humans can't hear it but a dog can hear it for miles. The next time you hear Mosley talk about bankers, try seeing if you can't hear the word Jew instead of bankers. When he talks about a return to traditional values, ask yourself what you think he means.”

Patrick considered that for a long moment. Then he said, very quietly, “you're telling me that he is the one who took Annie, aren't you?”

“Yes.”

His knuckles clenched tight on his glass. “Why not have him fucking killed as well then?”

Tommy almost smiled. “I did try, once. He's better protected then you might imagine. And now that the new party has been announced, his death would be a martyrdom. No, he will need to be brought down.”

Patrick took a sip of his whiskey. “You expect me to meet this man, knowing he's abducted my sister, and shake his hand? Join his political party?”

“If your sister has agreed to shake his hand, I can't see how you could protest.”

Patrick swallowed. “Annie... knows about this plan. Knows what he did, what you're asking me to do?”

“Yes.”

Her brother frowned. “And she agreed to it?”

“She did.”

“Awful lot of strain to put her under.”

“So far she seems to be bearing up. If she can't handle it, I'll deal with that when the time comes. But for now this is the best option we have available to get you into Mosley's confidences.”

“Once the BUF is broken, once Mosley is exposed and his power is gone, you can pull the trigger yourself as far as I'm concerned. I'll have him brought to you in a shipping container. But in the meantime, yes, I expect you to smile at the devil, and let him think he's got you where he wants you.”

“If you're already spying for the Home Office, what do you need me and my sister for?”

Tommy took a puff on his cigar. He would never understand why people enjoyed the sweet, sickly smoke. No more than he understood why people drank champagne. Particularly in a world where whiskey and cigarettes existed. “I assumed you've looked into who I am since your sister's phone call.”

“I have.”

“If your people are any good then you know that I made my money on horse racing before I diversified, that I still run the gang out of Birmingham called the Peaky Blinders. It's a matter of public record that I'm from a working class family, a family of gypsies. I may be an MP now, but I am still not the kind of man that Mosley images as the future of Britain.

“Mosley sent me your sister as an excuse for my blood. His blood-cleansing is coming but he needs me in the meantime. If he can imagine that my bloodline will be merged with your own, overcome by it, he can justify having me as his second in command. He will never trust me but he will trust you, trust Annabelle's blood to make my children worthy of the world he envisions.”

“What do you mean, her blood?”

“Mosley needs me now, to do his dirty work, but I am not who he imagines as a man for the future. He advised me to fire my Jewish lawyer, lay off all of my Omega employees. I am not fool enough to imagine that he has overlooked his prejudice for my own people. He cannot move against me now because he needs me, publicly. But, eventually, if this glorious revolution he imagines comes, he will need to justify me to the racists and designists that he brings to power. I'm a gypsy, Mr. Grant. Your sister is descended from British Kings. He clearly means for her to redeem me, in the eyes of his new order. ”

Patrick raised a single eyebrow. “Where do I come in then?”

“I said Mosley needed me, not that he trusts me. You are a man he can see as his equal. One he has taken great steps to ensure has his mutual interests at heart.” Tommy took a deep drag on his cigarette.

“What do you ask me to do?”

“I'm not sure yet. For now just to listen. Mosley will tip his hand in due time, and it's only then that we will know how to act.”

“You want me to break bread with a man who had my sister kidnapped? Arranged her... defilement.”

“Her rape, yes.” Tommy agreed. “But in doing so, you'll be organizing her downfall. If your sister can agree to go along with his plan, allow him to believe he's won in the pursuit of defeating him, then you're a poor man if you can't do the same.”

The other Alpha grimaced. “You make it hard to say no to you, don't you Shelby.”

“In all circumstances.”

“And after this, what is to happen with you and my sister?”

“She asked me to grant her a divorce, once we've accomplished her desires.”

“And will you?”

“Yes.”

“My mother... she will not wish the two of you to divorce.”

“Your sister's wishes come first.”

Patrick Grant shifted in his chair. “Well, I suppose we shall have to deal with that, when the time comes.”

“You are agreed to go through with the plan then?”

Patrick's laugh was short and dry. “As you said, my sister has not left me much of a choice. If she has agreed to it, how can I abstain?”

Tea was served at a table in the large garden. Lady Grant and her daughter sat together on a wide bench seat. The older Omega seemed to curl around her daughter, metaphysically if in no other way. Her hand never left Annabelle's even as she poured the tea and served the scones.

When they had had their tea, she released her daughter's hand however. “Patty, I've boxed up some things for Annie to look through. Some of her things she might want to take with her to Mr. Shelby's house. Will you help her bring down what she wants to take please?”

“Yes, mama.” Both children rose.

For the first time, he was left alone with Lady Grant. She sipped her tea, and he sipped his whiskey. He might have expected her to retreat but, to the contrary, she seemed for the first time that afternoon, truly alert. She leaned forward, considering him openly now that they were alone.

“The ring is exactly as it should be.” She said, finally. “And I thank you for that.”

“My aunt Polly chose it. She'll be glad you approve.”

“When I meet her, I shall have to thank her.” She filled up his cup and, after a moment's hesitation said, “if it is agreeable to your Mr. Shelby, I would like to speak of some details of what's to come. I know it is indelicate to rush to matters of business so quickly, but given the circumstances, I hope you will agree that it is prudent.”

“Very prudent. I would like to have the matter settled as much as anyone else.”

“I am delighted to hear you say that, Mr. Shelby.” She really did seem to mean it too, given the way her scent swelled and her cheeks flushed. “I'm willing to forego the engagement party... given the happy announcement I expect we shall all receive soon enough. It wouldn't do to have her showing in a white dress. We can have the wedding next week at the latest, the party afterward we will host at our own country house a few hours outside of London. I would have liked to see my daughter married in the Castle Scone, but it wouldn't be easy to persuade the right people to travel on such short notice.”

So she had not told her mother about Mosley, their agreement or their plans. Fair enough, he wasn't sure how he himself would have broached the subject with Lady Grant.

“You must let me know how I can be of service.”

“The sooner you send me your guest list, the better.”

“I'll have it sent over directly.”

“You are very good, Mr. Shelby.”

“Let me know if there is any way I can help.” He waved one hand. “Money, of course, is no object.”

Lady Grant shook her head. “No of course not Mr. Shelby, but it's the bride's family who pays.”

He finished his whiskey in one gulp. “Not where I come from, Lady Grant.”

She raised an eyebrow. “And where is it that you do come from, Mr. Shelby?”

“A gypsy family. We pay a bride price, in fact, to the family of the girl.” He lit a cigarette and she watched him calmly.

“A bride price?”

“Yes.”

“I don't think, under the circumstances, that will really be necessary. You've saved our Annie from ruin, have you not?”

“That is one way of thinking of it.”

She considered him for a moment, then said. “My primary concern, you understand, is Annabelle's future. Now that she has been found and recovered, that she be able to rejoin society, in her proper place.”

“Her future is my primary concern as well.” He couldn't say he cared much about what he was sure her mother considered recovering a proper place in society. But it wasn't untrue that preserving Annabelle's well being was, increasingly, gaining predominance among his objectives. He was an Alpha after all, wasn't he? Highly normal that he would want to protect an Omega who had given him her Heat. To be expected, surely. So he wasn't sure exactly why the thought made him shift uncomfortably in his seat.

“I'm glad to hear you say that, Mr. Shelby.”

When he said nothing in reply she took another sip of tea and then waved a girl, waiting by the door to be called for more things over. “Catherine, bring me the jewelry case off of my vanity upstairs, will you please?”

“Yes Mrs. Grant.”

“I presume Patrick has spoken to you of what Annie is to inherit from her father.”

He nodded. He had told Patrick about the prenuptial agreement but did not think that it bore mentioning to the lady of the house. She might be pleased to hear about it at the end of all of this but he did not think that it would reassure her in the moment. No, that would not be part of her plan for her daughter to rejoin society.

“She has an inheritance from me as well. Though less substantial, at least if you were to ask a banker to appraise it, it is not insignificant. Some of it though, are not things that can be bought.”

The girl was back, carrying a large jewelry case of crushed black velvet. The faded gold lettering on the front read _Bassange_ and beneath the Greek symbol for Omega. The Vicountess took the case and placed it on the table between them.

“This has been in my family for generations. My great grandmother was the last of us to have this particular piece Placed.”

She flipped the box open to reveal it's contents. To the casual eye it might have appeared to be a simple, slim chain of diamonds and sapphires but even on the black velvet cloth he could see the shape of it. _A leashing chain_. One cord of it would go about her waist, the others reaching to each limb to encircle slender wrists and ankles, another could connect to a collar or even a more traditional necklace. Traditionally such things were Placed by having a jeweler strike out the clasps so the Omega couldn't take it off.

And beneath the sapphires at each limb... clever little locks meant to fit together, to bind the girl hand and foot in any position he wished. Wrists to ankles, ankles together, bent over and head to the ground: a way to impose the position of presentation, to encourage him to take her Mating gland. It was traditional to be worn the day an Alpha took her Gland.

So her mother knew that he hadn't Claimed her. Somehow, he didn't think that Annabelle had told her mother the details of her Heat though. But she must have known, somehow: the chain was a clear enough message for him. _She will not wish the two of you to divorce_ , Patrick had said. Her mother wanted her properly Claimed, a bond between them that could not be taken back or questioned.

Tommy too a drag on his cigarette to give himself time to think, letting the case lie open between them but not looking at the chain itself. “If you mean for her to wear it on our wedding day, I'll not object. But neither will I have the clasps struck.” He said, finally.

The older Omega's eyebrow raised slightly. “So far, Mr. Shelby, you have not balked to do the right thing by her. I admit that I am surprised that you balk at the final piece of protection you can offer her... particularly when it takes this form.”

“Your daughter has not asked me for this.”

“It is not tradition that the Omega asks.”

“Nevertheless, I would not take such a step, without her asking me for it.”

“And if I were to ask on her behalf? Would you oblige? If only to give the family a measure of... security, for her future.”

“No, I would not oblige.”

The older woman took a sip of her tea and gave him a surprisingly warm smile. “You're a modern man then, Mr. Shelby?”

“No. Not at least in the way that you mean it, I think.”  
“Still... I think I shall have it sent along with the other jewelry I'm giving her as a wedding present.” She hesitated for a moment. “And she will wear it, on your wedding day.”

At a gesture the maid came forward and took the case away. Annabelle and Patrick came back downstairs and he was surprised that she didn't return to her mother's side. Instead, when he stood, she slipped herself under his arm, where she fitted neatly up against his side, just the right height that her shoulder came beneath his arm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No smut for a change! But let me know what you think of the world building and Annabelle's family! I'm super curious to hear your thoughts. And don't worry: next chapter they get married and I get right back to my usual trash :D


	10. Chapter 10

They were married the next Tuesday at St. James's Church.

The morning of her wedding seemed to her to pass slowly, in tense boredom. She'd spent the night at her mother's house, as was tradition. She woke early. She bathed and washed her hair, dried it in curlers and then Martha helped her put it up. She put on the leashing chain her mother had left out for her with Martha's help. The press of the stones against her flesh, the slender trailing chains were like firm fingers against her skin, adding to the strange mix of dread and excitement she felt.

She had said yes to this man past midnight in his kitchen as he fed her the first food she'd eaten in many days. Since then he'd had her virginity, opened her neck, beaten her with a belt. And now he was to be her husband. In the eyes of the world she would have no further need of protection from him. The promise he had made her, the vague letter from the home office... none of it would mean much against the word of the man who she'd knelt before in front of God and the Law.

The anger she had felt toward Mosley now felt like a burning ember in a snow storm, not enough to keep her feet and hands from feeling numb as she contemplated what it would mean to be his wife. Another kind of girl might have cried. Certainly she felt a lump in her throat that let her know that she could easily succumb to tears if she wanted. She might have changed her mind, said that she didn't want to go through with it, if only she felt that were a possibility.

But that option had closed. The announcements had been sent out, the papers had been written and read. The world expected her to marry the man that they knew had found her, saved her, and, most importantly, fucked and Claimed her. She had not been raised to consider the possibility that she would refuse to marry him after all that.

It was not, in the end, bravery that sustained her but perhaps a lack of it. She was, as she had been educated to be, too scared to cause a fuss to speak up on her own behalf.

So, instead, she put on the white stockings, brassiere and bloomers, then the white dress and went downstairs and poured herself a drink and lit a cigarette. She closed her eyes and with the taste of whiskey in her mouth and the smell of the cigarette in the air, she could almost imagine that the firm back of the couch was his chest. Her breathing became his breathing and she imagined leaning back against his chest.

 _You're alright, sweetheart, it's going to be alright._ She imagined him telling her. Phantom fingers trailed up her arm, a soothing gesture meant to calm her.

She tilted her head back, breathing in the smoke. “You'll not hurt me, will you Thomas?”

 _Aye girl, no harm will come to you_. _I'll see to it_.

And she let herself be soothed by the fantasy.

Of the ceremony she remembered little. She was left only with impressions, flashes of scenes strung together in a loose association: Tommy lifting her veil, kneeling before him for their vows, his hand on her cheek and his lips on hers and then walking back down the isle with his hand at the small of her back.

It had been the traditional ceremony. The priest had said a mass and offered them and the other guests sacrament before beginning their vows. She had knelt while Tommy said his vows, only raising her face to his to say her own. It felt strange to kneel in front of him in a church after he'd taken her mouth in such a similar position only the day before, just before he'd put her in the car for her mother's house in fact.

The priest had given Tommy the ring to slip on her finger and his own and then a length of cord to bind her wrists together. The words of instruction, obedience for her, mastery for him, had seemed to fade away as Tommy knelt and, with a wink, passed the cord around only one of her wrists. It met the criteria for the ritual but left her hands, in truth, free.

When their vows were said and the ceremony had ended, he bent and raised her to her feet. There were a few men from the papers waiting for them on the street but Tommy didn't slow down, keeping a protective grip on her hip and steering her firmly toward the waiting car. She and Tommy got into the back and the man in the front who she didn't know, not a Blinder by the look of him, pulled out into the traffic.

In keeping with the taste of the day, the dress itself was a simple sheaf of white silk that clung to her form tightly but had little embellishment but with an extravagant veil that, in the confines of the car frothed like sea foam around her, taking up the space of an entire person.

Tommy lit a cigarette and the man driving passed him back a flask. “A nip o' whiskey for luck. Congratulations, Tom, Mrs. Shelby.”

“Annabelle, this is Johnny Dogs. He's... a friend.”

Johnny Dogs bowed as best he could from the front seat. “Pleasure to meet you, ma'am.”

Tommy took the flask and a swig from it. “Still carry a knife in your boot Johnny?”

The weapon, a little dagger in a leather sheath, was passed back as well and Tommy took her hand, turning over the palm to look for the knot he'd tied. When he found it he slid the knife beneath and freed her with a single effort. He closed the knife again and slipped it into his pant pocket.

“Why... that is why did you only bind one wrist?” She asked shyly, as he undid the twine.

“Found you bound, didn't I? I'll not repeat that against your will, eh?”

“Thank you.” She swallowed.

He considered, then passed her the flask. “That is not something for which I require thanks, Annabelle.”

She took a sip. He had said that before, that he didn't require her thanks. But she didn't know what he meant by that. The words seemed to mean more than just a rebuff of gratitude. He seemed almost angry when he said them, though she didn't think at her, somehow.

Looking out the window she was surprised to see that they did not appear to be headed back toward Tommy's London residence, but rather headed instead, out of the city. There would be a party later at her mother's country home but that wouldn't be until evening, plenty of time remained to return home and change... or other things. He'd had her body before but the wedding would still need to be consummated to be legal, she was surprised that he didn't want to finalize it as soon as possible. For the simple fact of making it legal, if not for the fact that this was the longest they'd gone without him having her since the first day he had.

“Where are we going?”

“To your mothers.”

“We're not expected there until the early evening. Not that mama will complain but the drive won't take more than an hour or two.”

“We need to make a stop along the way.”

“For what?”

He passed her the flask again as an answer.

The driver seemed to know where they were going though he followed an increasingly convoluted series of country lanes once they were out of the city. The car with Ada, Polly, Charlie and Karl followed behind. It was a fine day and had rained so the dust of the lane was tamped down and they could open the windows without fear of inhaling too much or contaminating their nice clothes. Annabelle once moved to take off the veil but Tommy shook his head. “Not yet, sweetheart.”

Finally, however, they seemed to spot what they were looking for. They pulled off of the road, bouncing across a final muddy ditch to pull up in a caravan of tinker trailers. Johnny got out of the car and went out, calling out a greeting to the men and women who were already gathered around the remnants of an old fire. She looked out at the brightly painted and ornately carved Vardos and then looked back at Tommy questioningly.

Johnny got out of the car and went forward, greeting the nearest man with a warm clap on the shoulder.

“Little bit of ceremony left, sweetheart.” He said, taking a long drag on his cigarette. “Right. I've seen you take a belt so I know you can take pain. I'll expect you not to flinch, when it comes to it.”

“Comes to what?”

“There's a gypsy witch in there whose going to come out, we're both going to kneel down on that little alter. She'll say some words, cut our palms and then tie our hands with a cloth. It binds the bloods together.”

She nodded. “Alright.”

“I'm only asking you to do this because otherwise the wedding won't look real, not to those who know where to look. If you don't want to go through with it, I can cut our palms in this car with Johnny Dog's knife and that might be enough to satisfy Mosley. But there are other people in play who will know whether you get out of this car and say the words, eh?”

She swallowed. “Alright.”

He got out of the door and as she waited for him to open hers, Ada beat him to it. She opened the door and looked in at Annabelle, taking in the white dress, matching shoes and trailing veil. “Best leave the shoes here or they'll be ruined.” She said. “Good luck anyway for the bride to be barefoot in the mud, probably. Better still if you were nine months gone and about to pop, too but only one of those can be helped.”

She looked down and saw that Polly and Ada were already barefoot. Ada still had her stockings on but Polly had abandoned hers.

“And what about the veil? It's too long by half and will drag in the mud.”

“Oh never mind that, I'll tie up the bottom that'll keep it mostly clean.”

She bent and slid her shoes off, arranging them neatly on the car floor. Her first step into the mud she sank almost to her ankles and was surprised to find that she almost enjoyed the sensation but wished she was as daring as Poll and had been able to take off her stockings. Ada tied up her veil and they led her forward to kneel next to Tommy at the alter. Strange she thought, that they both knelt, whereas only she had before.

The woman who stood before them had surprisingly dark hair for a woman of her age, though someone Annabelle did not think that she dyed it. She spoke in a language that Annabelle had occasionally heard Tommy speak to Poll or on the phone. Romani, she was sure. Tommy answered the woman back as she spoke and then the woman turned to her.

“She asks if you accept to be my wife.” Tommy translated for her.

“I do.”

“She wants you to offer your own hand.”

Annabelle fought not to let her fingers tremble as she offered the woman her hand, palm up as Tommy had. She steeled herself as the woman drew the blade across Tommy's hand, a line of crimson springing up behind it. The pain was intense, despite how terrified she was, and she fought back the gasp that came. The woman had cut rather a deeper slash than Annabelle felt was strictly necessary.

For a long moment she stood, dumbly, watching her blood well up and spill over, running over the back of her hand and then finally spilling over onto the white cloth spread before them. She shot a glance at Tommy, wondering why he didn't take her palm. The expression in his eyes made shot like fire from her crown to her soles. He was watching her blood well on her hand with the kind of hunger that usually meant she was about to be fucked particularly hard. It was the look he had when he had opened her glands for the first time, fucked her mouth for the first time, beaten her for the first time, but pushed back behind a wall of restraint that made her shiver. Fire contained in a wall of ice but burning her all the hotter for it.

“The Omega takes the Alphas hand.” He said, his voice low and pitched with something she'd never heard before, a terrible, consuming longing. “You must come to me willingly.”

Shuddering, she put her hand in his.

The sensation of their two bloods meeting bloomed in her like a flower opening. Her sex throbbed as his heartbeat went thumbing through her veins, his blood pumping through her heart, hers pumping through his. She felt the presence of his will suffuse her body and knew that, in that instant, she would have done anything he asked her to. It was power more immense than anything she'd ever felt before, an inexorable, inescapable pull of his mind –like gravity or the pull of two magnets toward each other, it felt like a fundamental force of nature.

And she felt what he wanted: to push her down in the mud and claim her in front of an audience, to take her somewhere secluded and open her Mating gland, to see her belly swell with his baby, to own and possess her in a thousand small and big ways. He wanted her to resist, to give him the pleasure of taking her in hand, taking a belt to her. He wanted her to submit, to bend just as he wanted her, to kneel and present and take him even when it hurt. And oh did he want to hurt her, take her roughly and make her cry, make her scream and moan and beg him for more. And he wanted to treat her sweetly, give her beautiful and precious things, keep her safe from anything in the world that would cause her harm. He would tear the throat out of anyone who tried to hurt her and enjoy the sensation of it. He would spank and knot her until she sobbed her throat raw.

He wanted... he wanted... he wanted... The desires were contradictory, kaleidoscopic and disorienting and all of them burned through her blood in a single moment. _Worship, destroy, punish, pleasure, own, protect_... his thoughts in her head were overwhelming.

Her mouth fell open and she gasped, “Tommy.”

He pulled her roughly against him, mouth crashing down on hers. His lips parted hers without waiting for permission, plundering and taking what he pleased. The grip of his free hand in her hair was enough to keep her limp, slack, accepting of what he chose to bestow, even if the onslaught of what she still felt through their joined hands hadn't been enough.

She gasped, arching against him, heedless of the fact that they knelt still on an alter with a dozen or more people watching them. But he had kept his wits about him a bit better. Slowly, he peeled his palm from hers. She sobbed when the connection broke, reaching back for his hand. But he caught her wrist and pulled it down to her side.

“ _ **Enough**_ , Annabelle.”

The old gypsy woman was smiling and, for the first time, spoke in English. “The blood between you is strong indeed. A powerful child will grow in your womb by this man.”

There was a roar of approval for this statement and Tommy hauled her to her feet by her wrist to face the crowd. The woman passed Tommy the dagger with their combined bloods and she noticed that Tommy took the small white cloth that her blood had dripped down onto, putting it in his pocket before turning and leaving the alter. He led her to where Polly and Ada were standing, watching as the fire in the center of the caravans was lit, food and drink began to appear out of every door and a few musicians struck up with a fiddle and a guitar on one side, singing in that same, strange language.

Polly lit a cigarette and passed it to Tommy, still holding her by the wrist possessively, his blood making an imprint where he held her. “Don't eat or drink anything these fuckers give you.” She told Annabelle. “At best it will give you a parasite, at worse it will give you some fucking curse.”

She shook out a handkerchief and began to inspect Annabelle's hand, using her barefoot to dash away the blood mixing with the mud so it wasn't visible any longer. She poured a bit of whiskey from her flask over the cut and then bound it up with her handkerchief. “And don't leave any fucking blood behind, to be sure. You next, Thomas.”

With a concerted effort he made himself let go of her wrist. “I'm fine, Polly.”

“It's not your fucking hand I'm worried about, is it?” His aunt said sharply. “You're blood is my fucking blood, isn't it? I don't want anymore goddamn curses in this family, got enough already, wouldn't you say?”

Tommy's grin was small and not very sincere. “Alright then, Pol, bind me up.”

The driver who had brought them turned up next to them with a beer and a plate of what looked to be some kind of stew. He raised the beer to Tommy. “Thanks for the vittles, Tom. Good fucking wedding, Mrs. Shelby.”

“Johnny put that slop down, we're not staying.” Ada said, exasperated.

“What do you mean we're not staying?” His voice was incredulous. “Tom? I ask you, what is the meaning of this?”

“We've got to get Annabelle cleaned up and find her some new stockings as well, you fucking idiot. She's hardly going to spend her wedding night in a fucking caravan with this lot is she? Her mother is goddamn waiting for her, ain't she?” Ada answered.

“She's not staying? After that display? Oh I don't know if that's very good luck now is it?”

“There's going to be more booze and better quality where we're going,” Ada said, sounding both bored and annoyed. “Plus a house full of maids who haven't heard of you, and therefore don't know better than to trust anything that comes out of your mouth. Is that better?”

A smile cracked over the Irish man's face and he hurriedly put down the plate on a nearby barrel acting as a table. “Oh I say Tom, better to bless your wedding twice in that case.”

Tommy smiled. “Glad you agree, Johnny. I'd hate to drive meself.”

“Oh don't worry about that now, would Johnny Dogs ever let you down?”

Back in the car, Tommy helped her out of her veil, putting it aside on the seat. When he began to slide his hands up her thighs she shifted uncomfortably, desperately, glancing at Johnny in the front seat. He paused, meeting her eyes, “just getting you out of these dirty stockings love, nothing untoward.”

She nodded and let him slide his hands up up to the band at her waist and slid them down her hips, thighs and calves, rolling them down slowly. She lifted her hips when it was required. When he was done he rolled down the window and tossed the garment out.

She looked at him, blood running down into the wrist of his immaculate white shirt and suit, mud on his shoes but otherwise not a hair out of place. She took her bandaged hand and put it over the place where she knew the tattoo over his heart lay.

“Can I … Can I just lay with you, against you?”

He pulled her so she lay across him, her head in the crook of his shoulder. She wormed her way into his jacket, sliding a hand behind his back and another across his chest. She pressed a soft kiss to his chest. “There you are, sweetheart.”

“What time is it?” She asked after a while.

“About two, I reckon.” He pressed a kiss to the crown of her head. “A long time before you'll be expected anywhere.”

The car rumbled along down the road and he spoke without much consideration, knowing that she barely heard him, still a bit shell shocked from what all had happened to her, and Johnny wasn't listening. “We'll take you to your mother's house, get you cleaned up and looking fine. Ada packed you a suitcase full of nice dresses. You can take your pick. Once you're kitted out proper then you can come down and receive your guests with your mother, all nice and clean and proper. And as for the cut on your hand, no one will ask about it, because they won't want to know the answer.”

His voice was low and she could feel it rumbling through his chest as she lay against him. The words were indistinct but the effect of the tone was enough. Her fingers slid over his vest, slipping beneath the fabric to press her palm over the place where she could feel his heart.

He slid his hand down to cup one ass cheek, pulling her over into his lap until she straddled one knee, sitting her up to look at him. He gripped her chin with one hand. She'd had nothing to drink yet that day except a sip of whiskey, and yet she looked drunk to him. Her eyes were glassy and full of lust. The white silk of her dress rode up over her thighs but she paid it no mind. She leaned forward, gripping his lapels but when she began to rock on his thigh and her slick began to flow, he slapped her ass sharply. “Eh, not that. Not here. Not yet.”

“Oh don't bother on my account, Tommy. She don't smell of nothing but you to me, mate, you know that.” Johnny spoke from the front seat as he maneuvered easily onto another country lane.

She was biting her lip and rocking a bit harder on his thigh, desperate for relief. But he knew better than to allow her to get what she wanted to easily. What she wanted and what she needed were two different things, and it was up to him to decide where on the line she fell.

He pushed her off his lap, ignoring the sob it drew from her lips. He pushed her back on the bench seat and bit his lip. He lit a cigarette and passed it to her, before lighting himself another. He passed her the flask. “Sweetheart, I will not deny you, not for long. But for now...you must endure for me, eh?”

She shook her head. “No, Tommy, please, not that.” Her head tipped back. “I need... I need... I need something Tommy, please, Alpha....please.”

The smell of her was starting to blossom, blooming forth from the slick that was pooling in her nickers. And suddenly he didn't give a fucking care what she would think about this when she regained her senses. It had been a mistake to let her straddle his hip, hadn't it? Or had he known what he was doing, wanted this reaction from her?

Tommy cleared his throat. “Johnny, I need you to run out of gas, man. Hike to the nearest petrol station and come back with a gallon of gas will you? Me and the missus will wait here for you.”

Johnny turned to look at him, and the Omega grinding on his thigh. “Alright Tom, but we best not miss the festivities, eh? I've been promised a maid who knows not what hogwash I speak and a fine bit of whiskey as well.”

“You shall have them both.” Tommy gritted out. “Now pull the car down the nearest lane and fuck off start walking, eh?”

Once Johnny Dogs was out of sight, he pulled her fully onto his laps. He stroked one hand up the side of her wedding dress and then slid his hands around to the back where his fingers fastened on the zip. He pulled it down the shoulders of her dress, pushing it down around her waist and trapping her hands in the tangle. Her breasts were perfect. He ran his hands over them, as if in a reverie. He bent his head and took the tip of one perfect breast into his mouth, suckling and sucking until she arched and gasped and pleaded with him to stop.

When he shifted, putting his blunt head against her opening, she gasped. “God, please, fuck, fuck, fuck me Tommy.” Her voice was strained, like a piano wire about to break.

When he pushed into her, she was incandescent, arching and pushing forward. His fingers curled in her hips and set slow pace, one designed to give him pleasure but that would never be enough for her. Her hands splayed out over his chest, bracing herself. The thin chains around her wrists were mesmerizing. It would be the work of a moment to bind her wrists together, render her helpless. He could pull her hands behind her back and use the chains to fasten her wrists together easily. Without her hands to help, she would be at the mercy of his hands at her hips to keep her balanced as she was on his cock. Fuck. The thought made him clench within her.

He put one arm around her waist and guided her off him. It was difficult to maneuver in the confines of the back seat of the car but he had more than enough strength to move her slender frame how he liked. He flipped her easily over, pushing her down so her head lay on the bench leather seat. His fingers curled in the bunched fabric of the dress at her waist, pulling it easily down over her hips and thighs. He lifted her hips and legs and slid it off, tossing it over the front seat.

He unhooked her brassiere and let it fall to the floor of the car.

For a moment he let himself stand over her, taking in the sight. Her head was turned to the side and, as her hair was still in the elegant pinned-up style from the wedding, he could see her eyes wide with fear and black with lust. At her throat her pulse was pounding. Her chest he had pushed down so her breasts were against the car seat but her legs were straight, the curve of her spine exaggerated by the position.

He caught both her hands with his, bringing them to cross at the small of her back and taking her wrists in one of his large palms. The slender little chains from her waist, her arms and legs made him feel like baring his fangs. God but he wanted to use them for their intended purpose, linking together the little clasps until she was bound before him and he could take her at his leisure.

 _Found you bound, didn't I_? His hand clenched involuntarily, hard enough to bruise her wrists, at the thought of another Alpha tying the wrists that were beneath his palms. _Tremble in fear, little Omega, but only for me_. _Submit yourself to binding, but only at my hand_. Holding her down would have to be enough, letting his hand do the work of a rope to immobilize her.

“Beg me.”

“Please, Tommy, please, Alpha, please... please....”

“Please what?”

“Fuck me. Take me. Whatever you want, Alpha, only just let me please you.”

He took her hip with his free hand and guided her back to him, pushing back into that warm, inviting tunnel. He fucked her hard enough that her head was soon slamming into the upright portion of the seat. Her mouth was open and what came from it was a rhythmic, high noise of desperate pleasure. With his hands he pulled her back onto him, making sure that she took the full length of him with every stroke even when she cried out, moaning at the sensation of fullness that bordered on pain.

When her head fell forward into the position of presentation, he felt as if some part of him had expected this. The leashing chain, the blood binding, kneeling down before him and saying words of obedience had been enough to stir both of their natures to a frenzy. This was why her mother had sent her the damn leashing chain to begin with, after all, wasn't it? To stir up the Omega part of her... that preening, obedient, supplicating little being within Annabelle Grant that provoked in him the desire to both rip open her veins and protect her at all costs. _Fuck her until she carries your child. Punish her just to show her you own her. Take her until she screams your name_.

He bent forward, pressing his teeth into the Gland that she displayed for him and making her sob, clenching on his length. “Alpha... please... please Claim me...” Her voice was hitched with emotion.

She'd never begged so sweetly before. Even when she pleaded with him to fuck her, she'd never sounded so desperate.

But this was the contraposition of what he had told Polly about taking a girl who was Heat fasted. He had said himself-- that she was off the edge of her own map, that her mother and society had trained her up not to know what she wanted. Certainly they had never prepared her for a man like him, someone with his rough predilections and past. He could have Claimed her on the banks of the Cut. He certainly could Claim her now. And no one in the world would think he'd done wrong. He'd married the girl, hadn't he? She'd knelt and said the words, taken his hand in blood, hadn't she? They'd both wanted this moment, bent over the back seat of a car in her wedding dress, hadn't they?

He let his tongue lathe the gland, pressing his teeth ever so slightly into the thin skin. The sound she made was like nothing he'd ever heard--- a high whine of pure desire. The taste of her was indescribable, a heady, thick, sweet mix that flowed over his tongue and made his head swim. _Fuck. Claim, Mate_. the Alpha in him screamed. His grip on her wrists tightened, hard enough to bruise. His knot was beginning to swell.

The will it took to pull himself back from her Gland was incredible. The smell of it, the taste of the potent mix of blood and pheromones that lay just beneath the surface... the feel of her tight, wet, tunnel about his knot and the little pleading noises of supplication she as making... all it it was enough to make him feel wild and feral. Everything he wanted. She wanted to give him everything he wanted. And by God did he want to take it from her.

His hand went to her neck instead of her hip, jerking her head to one side. Again he opened her glands, feeling the sting of the inadequacy of the act even as he began to cum within her. “You're fucking mine.” He growled against her throat, his large hand closing over her neck. “Fucking mine, girl.”

When it was over, she lay spread before him. She was bleeding from her glands, dripping down onto the leather seat and when he pulled out, their mixed juices of their coupling slid down over her slender thighs. He slid a finger into her, groaning at the feeling of her warm and wet around him, then bringing the finger to her lips for her to lick gratefully. He took his handkerchief out of his pocket and tossed it down next to her on the seat.

“Clean yourself up, Annabelle.”

He knew he needed to get out of the confines of the car before he changed his mind about opening her Mating gland. So he opened the door and stepped out. He walked to the country hedge and lit a cigarette, breathing the fresh air deeply and reminding himself that he'd made the right choice, that it would be insane to go back into the car, bend the girl back down and Claim her.

In the car, Annabelle sat up slowly. She put her knickers and brassiere back on, then slid the dress over her hips. She dabbed away the blood at her neck with the handkerchief he'd left her. She pulled the dress over her shoulders and managed with some difficulty the zipper on the back. She slid her shoes onto her bare feet and opened the car door, following him out into the fresh air.

Shy, she hung back, leaning against the edge of the car and watching him smoke. His face was unreadable as he looked out over an idyllic pasture that unfolded before them beyond the stone hedge to one side. Finally, she made herself walk to stand beside him.

“I'm sorry.”

He glanced down at her, his brow furrowing. “For what?”

“I shouldn't... that is...I shouldn't offer.”

He shook his head, then let it fall back until he appeared to be contemplating the sky. “Your mother shouldn't send you that fucking chain. The world shouldn't expect you kneel for your vows. You should be with me, out here in a fucking field.” The words were clipped, dull.

“Still... I won't let it happen again. You have my word.”

He wanted to tell her that it didn't matter, that she could trust that he would not Claim her no matter how she Presented and begged. But how close had he been, with his teeth against the thin skin of the Gland. It would have taken almost no more pressure at all to break through the skin, and he'd known that. The razors edge of what he wanted and no farther. But who was to say that next time he would be able to hold himself back?

So instead, he said nothing.

When Johnny came back he put the petrol in the boot of the car and they drove on. He was half surprised that she came back into his arms when they were settled again in the backseat. She hesitated for a moment but eventually she made a pleading little sound that induced him to pull him back to his chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys all so much for the generous reviews for the last chapter! I am so grateful that you guys are enjoying the world building, the smut and the characters and I really, really hope you continue to! I agonized a lot over this chapter and I wanted to get it just right so please let me know what you think! Did you like the ceremonies? Johnny Dogs? The smut? Please, please, please let me know what you thought!!!


	11. Chapter 11

Her mother's country house was large, in the style of the last century and made of cheerful red brick with the square, flat style of a climate where it never snowed. The grounds were a large: a sprawling tangle of pastures and wild meadows and woods that, closer to the house itself, slowly, in an imperceptible gradient, merged into the well manicured garden at the back of the house.

Lady Grant was already in the back, organizing the men who had been hired to arrange the extra chairs and tables for the evening. She greeted Tommy with a kiss on the cheek and Annabelle with a disapproving glance. “Annie! Your hair looks a fright. However did you manage to get so dirty between here and London?”

Annabelle blushed. “It was a warm day mother.” She said. “And this dress is hardly made for summer.”

“Don't argue, beloved. But you must go upstairs and have a bath. There will be photos later so you'll need to look presentable. And for goodness sake have the maid's steam your dress again, it's ever so wrinkled.”

“Yes, mama.”

To Tommy she said, “and she's managed to make you late, so you've missed tea. Patrick is in the study if you'd care to join him and I'll have someone send you a tray, Mr. Shelby.”

So he played billiards with Patrick and Johnny Dogs and drank the tea and whiskey he was offered. The photographer arrived around three o'clock, as did Ada, Polly and Charlie. “Linda and Arthur should be here shortly,” Polly told him when he and Patrick came out to welcome the family. “I told them not to be fucking late or we'll take the pictures without them.” Turning to the Omega who was waiting behind Tommy she said, “Lady Grant, you have a lovely home. Thank you so much for hosting us on this happy occasion.”

“Oh Polly, we will not.” Ada said, rolling her eyes. “And they'll be here, I told Linda not to let him get too drunk today.” To Mrs. Grant she said, “yes, beautiful grounds as well. I'm sure you're very proud of the garden.”

Mrs. Grant smiled. “Yes, I am rather. In fact I took the liberty of suggesting we might serve you all tea on the patio. I hope you won't object.”

“That sounds _lovely_.” Polly said firmly.

There was a long moment of silence as the three women regarded each other, sizing each other up. “Right.” Tommy said, finally. “Lady Grant, this is my baby sister, Ada Thorne, and my aunt, Elizabeth Gray. Polly, Ada, Lady Grant.”

“Pleased to make your acquaintance, Mrs. Thorne and Mrs. Gray.”

“Please, call me Polly.”

“Then you must call me Elizabeth.”

To Tommy she said, “Mr. Shelby, would you be so good as to go see what is holding Annabelle up? The light is fading and it will be best if we take the photographs as soon as possible once your family has had time to settle.”

“Of course, Lady Grant.”

He went up the stairs and to their room. She was at the vanity, Martha was just putting the finishing touches on her hair. The dress, freshly steamed and pressed, hung on the outside of the armoire and she was dressed in a fresh set of white stockings and garter belt with a blue silk robe over them. Both women stood when he entered, turning to face him.

“Right Martha, leave us.”

“Yes Mr. Shelby.”

When the door closed behind the maid, he said, “your mother sent me up to collect you. She's said she said she'll give Ada and the others tea while we wait for Arthur and take photos at four o'clock. Which happens, very conveniently, to be in about a half hour.” He let a faint smile touch his lips. “Just enough time for me to christen you properly as my wife.”

She smiled. “The country lane didn't count as properly?”

“No, no, love.” He shook his head in a mockery of pity. “Sadly for you, no.”

He went to where she stood and ran a thumb over her neck gland, fondly. He took the belt of her robe and undid it slowly, with firm, deliberate movements. She watched him open her robe with wide, helpless eyes as he pulled the robe open. He ran a rough hand over the smooth, supple curve of her breast and down to her hip where he gripped her none-to-gently. He pushed the robe from her shoulders so it fluttered to the floor, like a blue silk butterfly.

He kissed her. It was a slow kiss, though not a gentle one. He tilted back her head and bit each lip before parting them. His tongue delved in, sampling her taste. His hand on her hip pushed back, forcing her to step back until she was pressed between him and the large armoire behind her, flat against the heavy oak.

The hand that ran over her neck pushed her easily down to her knees.

With one hand he tangled his fingers into her hair, gripping her tightly. With the other he unbuckled his belt, unzipped himself and took out his cock. “Open.” He groaned, tilting his head back as he breached her throat and she choked, desperately trying to swallow him. He'd been successful in training her not to fight the way that her throat closed around him when he pushed her to the base of his cock, at least when he gave her time. He was so big that to get him all the way in, with her nose to the skin of his abdomen, there was no getting around the fact that he was in her throat, not just her mouth. She had learned to swallow him, enough to tolerate it, but it would never be an easy experience for her when he took her mouth hard. With a brutal thrust he could still make her gag and sputter if he were in a different kind of mood.

“I've been thinking of this since you said your vows. I swear I barely heard the fucking priest.” He told her, letting his head fall back with a groan and beginning to pump his hips. “You on your knees, promising to obey me. Fucking hell.”

He pulled out slowly, letting her run her tongue along his seam and swirl over the head, the way he liked. Then plunged back in, hard enough to make her gag and choke again. A little tear came up as he pushed her to the base, head trapped between him and the heavy wood behind her, unable to escape. He looked down at her, eyes wide and pleading looked up at him. She'd learned early on that he liked her to look up at him whenever he had his cock in her mouth, liked the sight of those innocent eyes and lips as he breached them.

He paused there. With him so deep she couldn't breathe, he knew. And he liked to watch her wait for him to release her. “Should I knot your mouth, eh?” He mused, running a fond caress over her smooth hair. “Might take more than a half hour to go down enough to slip past your teeth. Your mother might come looking, wondering what was taking you so long to get ready. What would she think to find you with my knot passed those teeth, cock in your throat?”

He pulled back letting her gasp for a moment, then jerking her head and pushing forward such that instead of plunging into her mouth he brought her lips to the base of his cock, where the knot was beginning to swell, She ran her lips and tongue over it, not needing to be told what he wanted after so much practice. “Well, what do you think Annabelle?” He asked.

“Whatever you want Thomas, anything.” She panted.

“An honest answer, at least. Diplomatic too.”

He filled her mouth again and this time he did not take it slowly. His strokes were no less deep but he plunged in with speed, snapping his lips into awaiting mouth. He felt himself nearing, the familiar tightening of his muscles and deep in his balls. “I'm going to cum on your tongue, girl, and you're to hold it there until I tell you otherwise, no swallowing it down like usual.”

She could give no answer, breathless and mouth occupied as it was. He pulled out just slightly and she felt his fingers tighten in her hair as the first wave filled her mouth. He leaned his head back and made a noise of raw, primal satisfaction.

He withdrew from her mouth with a wet pop. “Open. Show me.” He commanded.

She obeyed, showing him where his cum lay on her tongue.

He pressed a thumb into her mouth, scooping some of it up. That he rubbed into the scent glands at her neck and wrist.

“Alright then, swallow, Mrs. Shelby.”

Dutifully, she did as she was told.

Her eyes looked glazed, drunk with lust. Her lips were red from the smeared lipstick and his rough use. He could smell the slick pooling between her thighs.

He crouched down before her and with one hand slid aside her knickers. He ran a large thumb between the sweet, wet folds of her and smiled. “I could leave you like this. Make you go down to meet your mother smelling like you want me. Do you think you'll be able to pay attention to the photographer with your cunt as wet as it is?”

She shook her head. “No... please... mercy, Thomas.”

He slipped a finger up to circle her bud, making her gasp and arch on his hands. She was beginning to rock back and forth, slowly against his hand. He let his hand move with her for a moment, letting her frustration and need build. With the hand not in her cunt he fished out his pocket watch and showed her the time. “Ten minutes until your mother expects you downstairs. Let's call it five to get dressed and clean yourself up. That gives you five to cum for me, eh?”

She nodded, lips pressed together. “Please. Help me.”

She leaned forward, pressed her lips to his in a desperate plea. It had been a rather guileless stratagem, all things considered, but perhaps the only one that could have gotten her what she wanted. Wide-eyed, hopeless acceptance of his subjugation, nothing else would have inspired him to start, slowly, to play his fingers back and forth along her slit.

Her arms fell forward, catching her as he began to stroke her. She rocked on his fingers, groaning and begging as he slipped first one, then a second, into her scalding depths.

She didn't need the full five minutes, truth be told he wasn't sure what he would have done if she'd lasted longer. At three though, her face contorted, head tilting back and thighs clenching as she writhed on his fingers.

When she was finished, she licked his fingers clean, and he helped her get back into her wedding dress, pulling the zip up for her and settling the veil in her hair.

After the photographs, Annabelle showed Polly and Ada around the garden. She helped her mother with the final arrangements and to greet the guests. A band was set up in the ballroom for dancing and cocktails, on the lawn people mingled between tables with white table cloths and food. The family stood for more photos and at dinner he and Patrick both made short speeches.

When dinner was over, he made his way to the side of the ballroom for a drink. Polly, who was already lounging on the bar, raised a finger to the bartender on his behalf. “Whiskey sour, for the groom.”

“Thanks, Poll.”

He accepted the drink and then turned to stand beside his aunt, both of them facing the gay and brightly lit scene of the ballroom. He raised his glass and she clinked her own against his. “To your marriage, Thomas.”

He did not respond, other than sipping his drink. Across the ballroom he could see Annabelle was surrounded by a group of Omegas, her age or perhaps a little older. She was laughing at something one of them had said and he was struck, suddenly, by how lovely she really was. It was almost easy to forget when she was close, when she was beneath him or knelt before him, how strikingly beautiful she was.

“You know what I was thinking.” Polly said as they watched her.

“No.”

“I wonder what else she's learning from you, other than your appetites.”

“What do you mean?”

Poll tilted her head toward Annabelle. “Does she look or smell like someone who is going to, in all likelihood, meet the man who planned her kidnap and her rape?”

“No, what's your point?”

“She's got a mask on, doing an excellent job of keeping her emotions in check. Now who does that remind you of?”

He shook his head. “She was brave when I found her.”

“Because she agreed to this? Because she agreed to help you? You think that makes her brave?”

“You don't?”

“It makes her an idealist. But wanting to do the right thing and being capable of it are not the same. You of all people should know that, eh Thomas?

“The girl you found on the banks of the Cut, do you think she would have knelt next to a man like you? Would have taken your hand in blood? Would have gotten out of the fucking car this afternoon?” His aunt took a deep drag on her cigarette and then pointed it at the girl, like a witch leveling a wand to cast a spell. “ But that right there... that's backbone, isn't it? That's a creature who is growing a fucking spine.”

“I thought you said I should take it easy on her, eh?”

Polly's smile was sardonic. “Well... even a witch and an accountant can be wrong every once in a while.”

“Well, she is an easy woman to underestimate, I'll grant you that.”

“Mosley, me... and what about you?”

“Hopefully this will all be over before we have to find that out.”

They were silent for a moment. The girl across the room glanced up at him, and seemed surprised to find him watching her. She blushed and smiled at him, before turning back to her companion shyly.

“I was surprised you bound her in blood.” Polly said in a tone that contained a very careful and calculated air of casualness. “You didn't have to, you know, not if she isn't to be your wife when this is all over.”

“People would have asked questions, if I hadn't, wondered why.”

“You don't think they would have just assumed her family didn't want to abide by such gypsy witchcraft? Wouldn't want their precious little daughter's soft palm cut to mingle blood with your own. And as for Mosley? He'll find it as barbaric as any of these other toffs.” She gestured to the room at large. “Hardly done to impress him.”

He took a drag on the cigarette. “Mosley knows me well enough to know that I wouldn't consider her my wife without cutting palms. He'll expect it, even if he doesn't like it. Besides, if things are kicking off with the Boswells as you say they are, she'll need the protection of being my wife from that as well.”

“I suppose you didn't think to mention to her that divorces don't work on magic spells.”

“No, I didn't.”

Polly considered him carefully. “The trouble with you Thomas is, sometimes I'm not even sure which of your lies you believe yourself. Don't deny part of you wanted to see that girl's blood on your palm.”

“I don't deny it Poll, but I had other reasons as well.”

“Don't you always.”

After dinner the party turned more bacchanalian. Champagne was opened, snow appeared from pockets to be spread over tables. Lady Grant and the other older set of Omegas were nowhere to be found. Annabelle herself and the younger set, if they were already married, or had thought ahead to bring an Alpha brother or even cousin, had been permitted to stay up. They had however naturally clustered together, nested in the plush couches of one of the larger drawing rooms. Annabelle sat at the very center, queen for a day, as the others cooed over her. Winifred and Claire, her two closest friends from school, sat closest with the others almost in a circle about her. They admired her ring, her hair, her dress, playfully touched her stomach and teased her about how soon it would begin to swell. A bolder one, married and Mated, pulled back the high neck of her dress to give a peak at the mess he'd made of her neck glands and they giggled heartily as Annabelle blushed.

“And I thought I had it bad with Harold!” Helen, the Omega who had peaked at her neck, tittered. “Your Mr. Shelby must really be pleased with you, Annie.”

“Don't worry though,” Beatrice, another married Omega assured her. “Eventually they settle, once they become more sure of the bond. Some day the skin will heal over. Mine only opens my glands during a Heat.”

Annabelle smiled at that but couldn't help but think she might feel almost neglected the day that Tommy left her alone for long enough that the skin of her neck was whole. He took such pleasure from tearing it open and she, in turn, took pleasure from allowing it. The way that she clenched about him when he bit her, the groans it drew from him and the full, tight feeling it brought her, seemed meant to be. Even when he took her sweetly, he never let her go without pressing his teeth, almost tenderly, into her skin. She couldn't imagine the fuck without the bite, the pleasure without the pain.

But perhaps they would be divorced by the time he grew tired of her. Was it strange that she almost preferred that to a life of slow-fading interest.

“I can't believe he's so handsome.” One of the younger Omegas said. “You're so lucky Annie. And it's so romantic that he rescued you from kidnapping. I can't believe you're in all the papers, it's just like a fairy tale.”

“Yes, I am lucky.” Annabelle agreed, finding nothing else in that sentiment to which she could quite agree. She was grateful it had been Tommy who had found her in the scrapyard of course. But all that had come after—the contract, the proposal from Winston Churchill— and certainly all that had come before, she hardly felt qualified as a fairy tale. She had not felt it was particularly romantic to meet with the lawyer, the doctor, for Polly Gray to put her engagement ring on her finger.

She had agreed to it all of course, would agree to it again if she had to choose. But there was something in her that was disappointed. It was her wedding day after all, and she had given it, and her virtue, to Oswald Mosley. In seeking his defeat of course but still, it was Mosley who had chosen this for her, this business arrangement instead of a love match.

This day would never come again. Never in the eyes of the world would she be the taken virgin. The world was celebrating her transition from maiden to wife and mother today and never again. A second wedding and match might come, but it would be a quiet affair, just her mother and Patrick perhaps. Some Alpha might agree to have her hand but he would have to be the kind that didn't mind she was divorced: a sensible and unprepossessing sort who could compromise on being the first to have her, if it meant a quiet and suitable marriage. Everything that Thomas Shelby was not.

She pushed the melancholy thought away, reminding herself to enjoy the day.

Winifred lit a cigarette and laughed at the girl who had called it a fairy tale. “June, you would be fucking terrified, if you were left alone with that man in a conversation at the dinner table, never mind his bedroom, never mind him finding you tied up in a shipping container.”

Annabelle winced. It had been Patrick who had let that particular detail of her abduction slip to a reporter in a moment of anger. She sorely wished he hadn't though. The image of it had clearly inflamed the imagination of the nation as it seemed to appear in every article or speech made about it afterward. And it had certainly had a similar affect on her friends. Even now she could smell a subtle shift in the scent of the Omegas around her at the thought of it.

It was something from a time before. A time when Omegas truly had been property, bargained between feudal Alpha lords to seal political alliances. Cleopatra had sent herself to Caesar bound hand and foot in a sack. Paris had tied Helen of Troy's hands to the mast of his ship when he took her from Menelaus. David had bound Bathsheba before taking her. That was the symbolic origin of the rope that Tommy had bound around her wrists during the wedding that morning.

June frowned. “I would not be terrified.”   
“You would too.” Winifred laughed. “He's handsome alright but he looks like the fucking devil himself would blink before making a bet with him. No offense Annie, I only mean he's quite the Alpha's Alpha.”  
Claire stroked her hair fondly. “Seems our Annie likes laying down with the devil though.” She took the cigarette from Winifred's lips and took a drag herself. “Besides, he seems doting enough. Do you think he'll be a caring Alpha Annie, perhaps outside of the bedroom at least?”

Annabelle considered that for a moment. She knew what Claire meant. A doting Alpha was one that took care of his Omega, made sure they were provided for and comfortable. In her own social class this often meant an awful lot of jewelry, trips to London, bags from Herod's and Fortnum & Mason. She couldn't imagine Tommy coming home with a armful of dresses or flowers like some Alpha's might. Instead she thought of the way he had prepared her to take his knot, stretching her with his fingers and making sure she was drenched with slick. He had fulfilled his promise, she had in fact screamed the moment he took her, but he'd taken all precautions to make it pleasurable for her.

“I think so.” She said. “I'm not sure it isn't too early to tell. He is very... kind, when it matters.”

Kind... doting... these words were not quite the right description of him. He'd offered her a choice of whether or not to proceed with the dangerous mission to bring down Mosley. The protection he tried to offer her from repercussions. And his offer of restraint. _These are not things for which I require thanks_ , he had told her.

“An older Alpha is such a blessing.” One of the married Omega's said. “A man who is established, who knows what he wants is just what an Omega needs. He'll teach you how to please him, keep him satisfied, easily enough.”

Claire laughed. “Seems as if he already has, given the state of her neck.”

Annabelle was one of the last to go up to bed. She had promised her mother that she would make sure that the drinks didn't run out so she was yawning by the time she decided that no more cases would need to be brought up from the wine cellar. Late as it was most of the guests, even those staying at the house, had gone to bed. Only one or two were still enjoying champagne and snow in the dinning room, the ballroom was completely deserted, the band having long packed up their instruments. That left only the parlor where she thought she could detect noise. She turned down the hall towards it when a voice behind her brought her up short.

“Miss Grant.”

She turned and fought not to freeze as Oswald Mosley came out of the library door behind her.

He came down the hall and inhaled deeply. “Oh I'm sorry, I must have startled you.” He said as he caught the way her scent was spiking. “But I did think that I smelled something... delectable out in the hall and I wanted to come congratulate you on your nuptials personally.”

“Yes I'm sorry sir, it's only quite late and I didn't expect anyone in this hall.” She said. “Forgive me... I think we know each other sir but you have me at a disadvantage as you know my name.”

“Yes, of course, how rude of me. Oswald Mosley.” He made a deferential little inclination of his head. “We saw each other at a few London soirees but I do not believe we were ever introduced. The fault is mine.”

“You must be a friend of my husbands then?”

“Yes. A very dear friend I like to imagine.”

His words and tone were polite enough but the way he was looking at her was quite decidedly not so, the way his eyes lingered on her collar and wrists. The scent coming off of him contradicted as well the description of him as a loyal friend to her newly-wed husband, an aggressive, overwhelming scent meant to frighten her.

“Yes,” he said with a smile that didn't reach his yes. “Thomas has done well for himself, hasn't he? Such a beautiful bride you make my dear. My sincerest congratulations to you both.”

“Thank you, Mr. Mosley.” She managed to choke out. “But I think I had better go look for Thomas now.”

The smile widened. “Ah yes, of course. He's been very bad indeed to neglect you so on the night of your engagement party. An Omega such as yourself will need her Alpha to settle her after such a day of excitement. You must be exhausted my dear. Let me help you find him.”

“Very kind of you.”

He took her by the elbow. It was the appropriate place to touch her, avoiding the wrist and as far from any glands as possible to ensure his scent would not linger on her. But the grip was just a fraction too tight, not enough to bruise but enough to let her feel the strength of his arm. “I saw him playing billiards earlier, lets try the parlor.”

Tommy looked up the moment she entered the room. His eyes flashed to the man beside her and she caught the clench of his jaw.

“Thomas, you wicked man. Look who I found wandering the house looking for you. I was reading in the library and smelled something utterly heavenly go by. Such a demure, delightful little thing and you've left her alone for far too long.” He made a scolding click with his tongue. “Pure-bred Omegas require more care. Anyone could have found her.”

Tommy ignored the comment. He dragged his eyes, with apparent effort, from where Mosley held her elbow, to Annabelle's face. “Are you tired then, sweetheart, shall I take you upstairs?”

“I shouldn't like to disrupt the game. I only came to let you know I was retiring, Tommy.”

He put down the pool stick, then took out a money clip from his breast pocked and laid a few notes on the table. “I suppose I forfeit.” He said to the man who was holding the other billiard que.

“Got your teeth into her, or is it the other way around mate?” The other Alpha jibbed with a small smile. “Not that anyone could blame you.”

“You'll grant me a shot at revenge tomorrow, I hope?”

“With pleasure, Shelby.”

“Goodnight gentlemen.” Thomas said, taking his jacket from the back of a chair and shrugging into it.

Only when he had taken her other elbow did Mosley release his grip on her, allowing Tommy to guide her to the door and out. She made it half way up the stairs before she allowed herself to let out the breath she felt she'd been holding since she'd seen Mosley in the corridor, sagging against him. He led her up to their room and closed the door behind them, locking it.

He guided her to the bed and sat her on it, kneeling before her. “Are you alright, sweetheart?”

She nodded, suddenly fighting back tears. “Yes, I'm fine.” She murmured, voice cracking. “I knew I would have to see him... I just... I didn't know how I would feel.”

He took the elbow that Mosley had held her by and kissed it gently, he ran his lips over the pulse and the sensitive flesh of her inner arm. “You're safe Annabelle, he won't take you again.”

She trembled like a leaf as he stood and went to the sideboard and poured two stiff drinks. He rang the bell for the maid and went to sit next to her on the bed, handing her one of the drinks.

“You'll feel better with a bit of whiskey and some toast. You haven't eaten anything all day I think.” He was right. She had been too nervous to eat much at dinner and too busy with preparations beforehand.

He went to the dresser and took off his jacket, hanging it neatly within. He took off his pocket watch, cuff links and tie pin, loosening the tie with a practiced movement before pulling it off entirely. A soft knock at the door and he went to answer it. “Mrs. Shelby would like some toast with butter and marmalade, a glass of warm milk, as well.”

“Yes sir.”

When the girl brought what he had asked for put it on the bedside table. “Careful with the crumbs sweetheart, you're on my side of the bed.”

She giggled as she took the first piece of toast. “This isn't exactly the way I thought I'd spend my wedding night, you know: eating toast in bed.”

“No, I don't imagine much of today was how you imagined it.”

She frowned. “Some of it was.”

“Oh?”

“Mother crying, Patrick giving me away, the dress and the flowers.”

He made a noncommittal noise and went back to the slow ritual of undressing.

“Was it... similar, to your first wedding?” She asked shyly.

“No, it wasn't.”

“Because you meant your vows?”  
“No, because no one got shot.”

She gaped at him. “Someone got shot at your wedding?”

He let out a little snort of a laugh. “I was just glad it was only one, and the one that I intended it to be.”

He had told her he'd killed people that first night, in the kitchen of his house. And she would have known somehow, even without being told. Still the thought of him murdering someone on his wedding day made her feel cold. She'd gritted her teeth and said she'd stop at nothing to bring down Mosley but that felt naive. There were limits to what she would be able to bring herself to do that didn't apply to him.

She blushed. “This too must be... different then how you spent your first wedding night.”

Tommy took a sip of his whiskey. “All I remember of it was that Charlie was up crying most of the night. Grace was exhausted—she'd barely eaten more than you had—so it was me who held him when the maids couldn't settle him.”

She smiled, teasingly. “Perhaps you'll have better luck for your third wedding then.”

“Perhaps.”

She bent and slid off her shoes, rubbing her sore feet. “I can't believe how tired I am.”

“It's near dawn. It's been a long day.”

“Thank you for the toast, Thomas, and for not making me come up here alone. I was really quite shaken up from seeing Mosley. It was kind of you not to make me go out without you.”

“Least I could do, seeing as I'm the one who put you in his way, after all.”

When she'd drunk the milk, the whiskey and eaten the toast she felt it was all she could do to keep her eyes open. She went to the bathroom and cleaned her teeth, changed into the ridiculous negligee hanging up for her and climbed into bed. Tommy was reading a newspaper but pulled her to him, one arm draping over her shoulders. She was asleep before her cheek touched his chest.

When here breathing was the regular, deep pattern that indicated she was asleep, Tommy shifted her gently from his chest, sliding the covers over her shoulders and settling her back on the pillow. She made a small noise of sleepy protest but didn't stir further as he stood and put his shoes back on. He didn't bother putting on more than the dressy pants and white shirt he was already wearing as he slipped out of the door and padded silently down the corridor.

He pushed open the door to the library the man waiting for him on the couch. Mosley was reading a newspaper, a cigarette dangling from his fingers and a glass of brandy on the table in front of him.

“A productive evening, I hope.” Tommy said, coming in and sitting in the seat opposite him. He lifted the decanter of brandy and poured himself three fingers into the glass Mosley had set out for him.

“Yes, very. Patrick Grant really is the genuine item: a true son of the British empire. He only needs now to realize that it's no longer something for which he needs to allow the Jews and these Omega-rights types make him feel he should be ashamed.”

“And does he?”

“He will.” Mosley pressed his lips together and seemed to consider his next words carefully. “His sister is just as she should be too, don't you agree?”

Tommy knew better than allow himself to contemplate the man's words too deeply. He could still feel the anger he'd felt when he'd seen Mosley holding Annabelle by the arm. It wouldn't do to let the other man see the rage boiling just beneath the calm surface.

So instead he fished his cigarettes out of his pocket and lit. “If you touch her again, Oswald, I'll break every bone in your fucking hand.” The tone and the gesture were without emphasis, as if her were telling the other man his plans to ride the next day.

Mosley snorted. “Really, Shelby. Don't be ridiculous.”

He met the other man's gaze without blinking. “No. Do not think this is a joke.” He said coldly. “If you frighten my wife again, I'll take it fucking personally.”

The other man tapped his lips with one finger. When he spoke next, he did not respond directly to Tommy's declaration.

“I'm sending a reporter from the Times who I'm friendly with to your house tomorrow morning.” Mosley told him. “He can interview Mrs. Shelby and introduce the public to her properly. Paint it as a heroic rescue, Omega virtue snatched back from the very jaws of ignominy, make the two of you out to seem romantic I think, in love and engaged despite the dire circumstances.”

“I'll ask her if she wants to be interviewed.”

Mosley scoffed. “If she says no, take her over your knee and either beat or fuck her until she remembers her place.”

When Tommy said nothing to that, Mosley sighed, then spoke as if explaining the obvious to a rather slow child. “The press coverage so far has been sympathetic to her but if she doesn't play their game at all they could still turn on her. This could still go badly for her, if she isn't seen in the proper way. She can either be seen as a wanton whore who got herself fucked by a man half her social standing... or she can be seen as a the perfect Omega, an irresistible virgin, rescued by a man who is now her wedded husband and devoted Alpha. Which do you think she would prefer?”

“As I said, I'll ask her if she wants to be interviewed.”

“I used to be frustrated by your stubbornness Mr. Shelby, now I find it's only amusing because I know that, like me, deep down you are a truly pragmatic person.” Mosley's smile was chilling. “I know you'll do the right thing by her.”

He went upstairs and stripped off his shirt and pants, climbing into bed with the woman in question. _Do the right thing for her_. That was what the world was telling him: from her mother to Oswald Mosley. That was the question after all, wasn't it? How to know what the right thing even was. The headline from that stupid article floated back up into his mind: What Would Annabelle Grant Want? He supposed he would have to trust the girl to tell him herself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter and the last chapter were VERY SKETCHY. I know this. Believe me, I know this. There's a lot of stuff to unpack with the blood exchange, the other Omegas tittering over her bites and bruises and Oswald telling Tommy to more or less take Annabelle in hand. But I will say this: Tommy and Annabelle stay true to themselves in this chapter. Tommy, even while trying to play a part, does not give into Mosley's idea of either beating or fucking her until she submits. Annabelle, while seeming to agree with the Omega rhetoric she hears about marriage and her Alpha, is able to parse for herself the difference between what the external world thinks she should enjoy in her relationship, and what she actually does enjoy. And it was oh so important for me to end the chapter on Tommy reflecting on her needs and wishes after a few chapters of focusing on building the fucked up world I'm building (#noregrets). In the next chapter things are about to get definitively both better and worse from a feminist perspective and I am eager and open to any critique or thoughts you have about this chapter and the next!! Also... what did you think about that dirty lil BJ at the beginning? Did you like it? All reviews are welcome and wanted :D


	12. Chapter 12

The headline, front and center of the front page, made Annabelle wince: **'Annabelle Grant In Her Own Words: The Darling Omega Tells How Her Nightmare Abduction Turned Into a Whirlwind Engagement to her Perfect Alpha in this Exclusive Interview'**. But the photo was even worse. It had not been one of the staged ones. She had refused to kneel at his feet or sit on his knee as the photographer had suggested, but she had agreed to sit by his side or stand in front of him. She remembered the moment it must have been taken in fact. The photographer had suggested that she bite her lip to make it appear more plump and Tommy's scent had spiked, swelling forth in anger at the suggestion. She'd turned to reassure him that she didn't have the slightest intention of following the ridiculous instruction from the Beta and he must have snapped the picture just then.

Tommy looked into the camera, jaw clenched in anger while she looked up at him in apparent adoration. That alone was enough to make her feel queasy but worse still the pose had turned her neck in such a way that one of the bruises just peaked over the high collar of the dress. The photo was, she supposed, fucking perfect for its intent, almost a caricature of Alpha and Omega dynamics. He looked angry and protective; she looked adoring and submissive. _Bitten and helpless_. Perfect compliments and a hint of a bruise to titillate, to suggest to readers how she had been ravaged by him.

She couldn't make herself read past the first paragraph. _Annabelle Grant stands, at one-hundred and sixty centimeters, only to the shoulder of her Alpha, Thomas Shelby and, at only nineteen, she is two decades younger. She has been through the trial of her life to find her perfect Alpha though, and in this exclusive interview she recounts both her harrowing rescue and how she intends to keep him satisfied now that she's found him..._

She put the article down on the table cloth, feeling sick to her stomach. She was having lunch out with two old friends from school, Winifred and Claire, at Claridge's. Claire had brought the article with her in her handbag and shown it to Annabelle. “I did _not_ say anything at all about keeping Thomas satisfied!” She protested, cheeks scarlet.

Winifred snatched it from her. “If you're not going to read it, I certainly am. Jesus Annie you look fantastic in this photo. You should cut it out for a scrap book of photos of you and Mr. Shelby.”

Annabelle laughed. “You must be joking.”

“You know your mother will, even if you don't.”

“She better leave this one out. I look like the worst kind of simpering idiot.”

“You look like you're in love.” Claire said quietly.

Claire, ever the serious one, had been engaged since she was sixteen, married at eighteen to a friend of the family. She was already almost due with her first child, nine months almost to the day since her wedding.

Annie shook her head. “I don't know him well enough to love him, Claire.”

She hadn't told Claire and Winnie the whole truth but she had told them some of it, that she didn't know Thomas very well, that he was a bit of a mystery, that she felt a little lost and overwhelmed when it came to him. She had withheld that he hadn't Marked her, along with the involvement of Mosley, her agreement to go along with the plan to take him down.

Claire laughed. “I used to think it took time too, before I met Eddie. The right Alpha... you just know.”

“You and Eddie chose each other Claire. Tommy and I were thrown together by circumstance. If we'd met at a party, I doubt he even would have noticed me.”

Claire frowned. “I wouldn't say that.”

“I'm not being hard on myself, I know he's...interested in me. I'm an Omega, he's an Alpha, which makes it easy. But I'm not his taste.”

“What makes you think that?”

She had tried to resist at first, looking for clues of who Grace Shelby had been. But surrounded as she was by her objects in Arrow House, it had been impossible not to draw conclusions. The photo on Tommy's desk of her was one thing, the painting of them together in the hall another. Grace had been as physically distinct from her as it was possible to imagine, blond and statuesque where Annabelle was slender and dark. That had been the first thing she had noted. She felt uneasy dressing herself in the other woman's clothes as well. Grace's style was not her own. Even adjusting for the change in style in the years since they'd been purchased there was something about them that didn't sit right on her shoulders. The styles were too adult, too mature. Grace had been a mother, Tommy's own age and his equal in a way that she was not.

That was the kind of partner a man like him would choose for himself.

Not a girl who was practically a child. An Omega who had been kidnapped and tossed into a narrow boat by forces beyond her control. These days she felt increasingly more like a pawn in some chess game, where Thomas Shelby would have wanted an opponent. He would not have chosen a piece on the board, but someone who played the game themselves.

Articles like this certainly wouldn't help matters like that, making her out to seem more ridiculous and vulnerable than she already was.

She shook her head. There was no putting all that into words. It was impossible to explain how it was to be alone and face-to-face with those ice blue eyes. In the bedroom it was alright. When he touched her, she didn't have to think. She came apart in his hands like spun sugar dipped in water, dissolving out into nothingness and the infinity of black, endless pleasure that he seemed to conjure out of her. Those were the easy moments. Ironically, the times she felt most his equal were when he had her on her hands and knees, knelt at his feet.

She was more afraid of him when he was feeding her toast and marmalade then when he was fucking her, one hand in her hair, the other on her hip hard enough to bruise. Or at the dinner table, when he asked her about her day and she felt like a school-child being quizzed by an adult, who asks for the form, rather than from a real sense of interest. After all, what would be of interest about her quiet, dreary days, to a man who wore a gun beneath his sharp black suit, even when he went to speak in the houses of parliament?

She had heard about the Peaky Blinders, when they were making a name for themselves in London a few years ago. Enough to know that there had likely been a time when Tommy wore a razor blade sown into his cap. How was she to talk to her handsome, brutal, gangster husband about lunch at Claridge's or Winnie's new mania for the harp or helping Claire pick out flowers for her new garden? She had once seen a picture in an Encyclopedia entry on Iceland of a snow capped volcano. That, was how her and Tommy's life felt, two diametrically opposed landscapes thrown together by strange circumstance, and able to touch only at the very farthest margins of themselves.

“I'm not... not someone he would take seriously if we had met in other circumstances.”

“Listen to this, ' _”I was lucky enough to be found by the love of my life. The next Omega who is taken, might not be so lucky. I hope that all Omega's who read this or hear about my story take the time to be grateful for the protection the Alphas in their life give them,” Annabelle says, taking her Alpha by the hand'_. Jesus you sound like one of those anti-suffragette activists who wants to go back to the days of collars and Placed leashing chains.” Winnie said.

Annabelle's eyebrows shot up. “But... I didn't say anything even close to that!” She protested.

Claire laughed. “Of course you didn't! Everyone knows they just make this stuff up!”

“But they can't just make up things I didn't say.”

Winnie laughed. “Clearly, they already have!”

“Jesus, I could be sick.”

What the fuck would Tommy think of the article. He, at least, was blessedly absent from it. Apart from his name and his picture, the fact that he was an MP from Birmingham and a member of the BUF, there was no other information about him at all.

“Don't be silly. And don't eat too much of your potatoes either, we're going shopping after this. The last thing we need is for you to be bloated.” Winnie said gaily.

Annabelle bought quite a few dresses that afternoon. Her wardrobe had mostly arrived from her mothers house but now, somehow, it didn't seem suitable. Standing next to Tommy in his black suits and sharply cut soldier's hair, she felt ridiculous in her flowered frocks. At Claire's insistence they also bought her quite a few sets of decorative matched sets of brassieres, slips and garter belts as well as negligees, meant to expose or conceal various parts of her to titillate. “I'm blushing even looking at that.” She told Claire when she held out a particularly scandalous one.

“We should get it for sure then.”

When they were done though it was her who insisted that they make another stop, in the furniture department. It was the only purchase that made her hands shake but in the bustle of the busy shop, she didn't think that Claire or Winnie noticed how her scent spiked as she bought it.

She had the driver take her back to the house after that so she'd have time to change for dinner. She was shrugging out of her hat and coat, handing them to Martha, when she heard him call from his study. “Annabelle, come in here a moment.”

“Would you like me to take your shopping up to the master bedroom Miss?” Martha asked.

“No Martha, thank you, I can manage myself.”

She swallowed, steadying herself. She wasn't sure if it was normal how she inevitably felt nervous when she went to see him. She was, perhaps rationally, afraid of him, though if you asked her to precise object of her fear she couldn't have said. It wasn't his bites, the rough way he treated her in bed, or even the belt. No, she did not deceive herself that she did not enjoy those things as much as he did. It wasn't the violence she knew he did—the razor blade in his hat, the scars on his knuckles—for she knew those would never be turned on her.

She'd never met a man like him. The men and Alphas in her life were not like him. Patrick was protective but not violent, as her father had been. More than that, they were a force she understood, could, if not fully manipulate, then at least influence. Perhaps it was fairest to say that what she feared most from him was the terrible restraint she'd seen in his eyes the night he'd found her. Here was a man who could deny her when she was in full-blown Heat. An Alpha who could do that was one she had no power over at all.

She pushed that from her mind and went to the study, wondering if he'd seen the article yet, if he would have noticed it if he had.

The answer to her question was laying on his desk, facing towards her. The article had been folded so the picture was face down but the headline was visible. She could smell the anger pouring off him, an acrid smell that made her heart race.“Sit down.” He told her, gesturing to one of the chairs. “Have you read this?”

She tried for a smile. “Winnie did. I couldn't stomach it, I'm afraid.”

Tommy leaned back and lit a cigarette. He considered her for a long moment and then said. “Do you know what Mosley said to me, when he said he was going to send the man over to do the article, eh?”

“No.”

“That you were going to be remembered as either a whore or a concubine. And it was up to me to choose the right one for you.” He took a drag on his cigarette. “I keep reminding myself of that, so I won't pick up the phone and tell this reporter that if he ever publishes a picture of your glands again, I'll fucking rip his throat out.”

The smell of him was making her stomach turn and her head feel cloudy. All she could think about was the tension in his jaw and shoulders. She wanted to lie on her back, belly exposed; wanted him to take her by the hair and push her to her knees, rip open her glands and satisfy himself until he could tell her he was pleased with her.

Why was this different then usual? She forced herself to think, through the haze of confused emotions. Tommy wasn't usually like this, not with her. She could tell that the photo had riled him up, tell he wanted to fuck her. So why wasn't he? That terrible restraint that she'd felt the night on the docks was back. She'd felt it again the night in the kitchen when he'd offered her the choice of whether or not to accept his offer, leaving the decision of him mating her up to her. And she felt it now.

But why? He wasn't always so restrained. Sometimes he gratified himself, her, with an abandon that made her head spin and her slick flow. What was different about this then? Why wouldn't he just fuck her, if that's what he wanted? Her Omega couldn't understand it. _I'm here Alpha, I'm here, claim me_. _Take me across the desk, across your knee, take my throat, anything you wish, Alpha_. But there were other voices in Annabelle Grant's head than the Omega. A voice in her she felt she'd never heard before, one that sounded just a little bit like Polly Gray said, _he's waiting for permission_. _He's waiting to be asked_.

She swallowed, forced herself to meet his gaze.

“I bought something today, with you in mind.”

Tommy had been sitting with his hand on the telephone for an hour before he'd heard her come in, trying to reason with himself. The article had been infuriating, but it was the picture that had made his scent spike, black rage opening in his chest like poison. It wasn't that it was obscene. In recent years showing a bit of a bite had become rather stylish. Movie stars had them painted on for premieres in Hollywood. If he was honest with himself, it was his reaction to the photo more than anything else that had made him so angry. The Alpha in him had _fucking_ loved it. He'd been hard the second he'd seen it.

It was the same reason why he'd only fucked her harder when she'd screamed that night in the dinning room when he knew the servants could hear them. He wanted the world to know that she took his knot, his bite, his mark. And now the proof was there, in black and white, on the front page of the Times. _His_ bite, on _her_ neck and the world had seen it. _His fucking property_. There was no one in England now who didn't know what she was. Fuck but the thought made his knot feel as if it would explode.

And that made him feel like a real goddamn bastard. No better than Mosley. Just another Alpha who didn't give a shit about her except for her smell and the way she could take him.

The way her scent had spike when she'd smelled his rage, the placating, soft scent she'd began to emit in response, the trembling little laugh and joke she'd tried to make, only made it worse. Jesus, how could he have let Polly and Winston Churchill talk him into the idea of letting her sign on to this plan? _Because it meant that you got what you secretly wanted all along, to knot the little virgin until she couldn't walk straight_. The sneering answer came without delay.

All of it had seemed sickeningly inevitable. The picture had been meant to put her in her place and he was only making it worse by frightening her with his anger. He'd been about to open his mouth, to tell her to go upstairs and change for dinner so at least she could be out of the smell of his anger for a bit, when she'd looked up at him suddenly.

“I bought something today, with you in mind.”

“Eh?” He mummer, distracted.

She bent down and reached into one of the shopping bags beside her and drew something out. She hesitated for a moment but then stood and walked to his side of the desk and held it out.

He held out his hand and she put it in. It was the braided gold cord meant to hold back a set of window drapes, a little like the ones in his own bedroom at Arrow House. It was thick, larger around then his thumb, but surprisingly soft material. By all rights it was a perfectly ordinary household object. But it looked a little like the rope he'd found her tied up with in the crate. That thought left him almost mindless with lust. He looked up at her. She was standing before him, taller than usual in her heels, head turned to one side, blushing. He reached up to grip her chin, turning her gaze to him.

“What are you trying to tell me with this then, eh?” He said, very softly.

She shook her head, unable to force out the words.

“What if I just guess and you nod your head yes or no.”

She nodded.

“Do you want me to tie your hands behind your back before I bend you over this desk and fuck you from behind?”  
A nod yes that he felt in his hand and cock more than he saw.

“And if I were to tie your knees together to make that tight little cunt all the tighter for me?”

She nodded, cheeks aflame but the smell rolling off of her now was heavenly, arousal and need flaring open from between her legs.

“If I took you upstairs and tied you hand a foot to my bed, splaying you out to fuck as I please?”

Another nod of affirmation.

“I found your hands bound, didn't I?” He said, voice quiet. “I told you the truth on our wedding day. This is not something you have to offer me.”

“I... I want it.”

“Today of all days, Annabelle? Is this going to make you feel better, or worse?”

“Better.”

He swallowed, rubbing a hand over his face.

He wanted it too. Fuck but he wanted it. The fact that she was even offering meant that he did. She must have noticed how he held her arms down, pinned her legs, when he fucked her... must have guessed that he wanted her restrained. _Bound. Vulnerable. Helpless._ But was this a step too far? It was one thing to rip open her neck, bend her over, pull her knees wide and plunge into her. Was he risking real damage by indulging this request? The girl had to have been shell shocked, at least a bit, by what had happened to her. She might panic at the physical reality of being constrained again, despite her request.

“If you need me to fuck you sweetheart, it doesn't have to be like this. I can take an hour, take you upstairs. You can please me without this.”

She swallowed. “Thomas, I _want_ this.”

Whether it was belief that she really did want it or his own lust that moved him, Tommy would never be able to say. “Alright then.” He let his fingers drift from her chin. He skimmed his hands down her chest, caressing her breasts only briefly before trailing down to settle at her hips. He pulled her forward until she stood between his legs and then began to undo the little line of buttons that went down the front of her flower-print dress. She was so small in comparison to him that even sitting he barely had to reach up to strip her. When he had them open to her navel he pulled the sleeves from her shoulders and peeled the dress down until it lay of the floor at her feet.

He took a moment to admire her form, caressing the soft skin in a soothing pattern. He could feel his own scent changing, the acrid anger falling away as she submitted to his touch. Her scent was changing in response, the fertile smell of slick building around her. He had no doubt that he would knot her so he pulled her slip down next and slipped a finger into her folds, parting her as she gasped and working the little nub at the apex of her with his thumb until she was gasping and the slick was pouring down her thigh.

He withdrew his fingers carefully.

“Bend over the desk and put you hands behind your back, crossed at the wrist.”

She turned and bent, crossing her hands gracefully as he had instructed. The exaggerated lordotic curve of her spine meant that her pert little ass was perfectly displayed. Wearing no underwear as she was it was easy to see the slick already drooling down her thigh, would have been fast work to open his pants and partake of those treasures.

He took a moment to work her again with his fingers, occasionally bending to give a broad lick with his tongue that made her arch her neck and moan. He teased her until he was afraid that she would cum in a moment before he picked up the length of cord she had given him.

He wrapped it between her wrists a few times to diffuse the force of any way he chose to move her, and spare her any unintentional bruising, tying the ropes almost at her mid-forearms to spare and expose her wrist glands. Next he turned his attention to lashing her thighs together, weaving the rope between and around them so the effect was that she couldn't spread her legs. When he was satisfied with his work he stepped back.

The sight of her bent over his desk, hands lashed behind her back, was one that he felt he would never forget. He ran a hand up her flank to pull the cups of her brassiere down so her bare breasts were against the wood of his desk. He cupped one breast, twisting the tip a bit harder than was strictly comfortable but making her gasp and arch. Then he slid his hand to her hair to tangle in it, pulling her up so she arched up.

“I'm going to knot you, sweetheart. It's going to be tight with your legs together like that. It's going to fucking hurt and I'll not go easy on you. I know you'll be a good girl and take it for me.”

“Yes, Tommy.” She gasped.

He undid his belt and zipper and took himself out. Already the knot was beginning to swell at the base of his cock. Even in her heels and bent over his desk he had to spread his legs and bend his knees a bit to get his cock on the level of her slit. He ran the head over her slit, teasing her a bit. It was almost the same movement as running a cigarette over his lips once before lighting it.

“Haven't got much choice, eh? Tied up like that.”

“No, Tommy.”

“Still, choice or not, I think I'll hear you beg me for it..”

“Please... please, Alpha... please knot me.”

Then, slowly, he pushed in.

He let her feel every inch of him, even the knot that was beginning to swell. The whine she made when he bottomed out in her was fucking perfect. “God you take me so well. Your fucking cunt was made to take my knot, wasn't it.”

“Yes, Tommy.”

“You were made to take my knot.”

“Yes, Tommy.”

“Everything I want, you give.”

“Yes, Tommy.”

He began to pump, slowly.

“Do you feel me, girl? How I split you open?” He groaned when she began to move too. She didn't have much leverage, pinned and tied as she was and the feeling must have been at least equal parts pain to pleasure but still she wanted to please, wanted to let him deeper.

“Yes, Tommy.”

“Tell me.”

“I... I... I feel so full. Jesus Christ, I can't believe you can fit. You're so fucking big. It hurts but please, please, please, please fuck me harder.”

“I'm going to stretch you out and tie you on my cock, girl.” He told her. His voice was so feral he barely recognized it.

“Please knot me, Tommy, please don't deny me. Take my glands, Alpha, take anything you wish.”

He began to pump faster as the knot began to swell. He was getting close and it became increasingly difficult to bottom out in her, the girth at the base of him starting to stretch her. She began to whine and whimper each time but he made her take the full length of him. When the knot was it's full size he wasn't sure that he would be able to put it back in if he withdrew. He pulled out just enough so that the widest part sat right at her opening, stretching her.

“Tommy, oh Tommy, you're splitting me open...” She wailed. Her voice was pleading, high with something that was a mixture of panic, pleasure and wonderment.

She would have presented if he hadn't held her head back, afraid of what he would do if he allowed her to let her head fall forward, what he would do if he saw her Mating Gland just then.

He leaned forward, running his tongue over the glands at her neck, worrying them with his teeth. He reached a hand around and found her clit, rubbing it just enough to take the edge off the pain of him sitting just at her entrance.

“You want to come on my knot, girl?”

“Yes!”

He sank his teeth into her gland, ripping it open. Her pheromone-rich blood was like mana on his tongue, filling his mouth with the essence of her. She came with a scream, walls spasmsing around his knot and pushing him over too. He sunk forward into her and filled her with his seed. “Fuck!” He roared. With the hand gripping her hair he pulled her head to the other side and opened the other gland as well, tearing into it until the hot, sweet taste of her blood filled his mouth and his senses.

Oblivion unfolded in Tommy's mind like black ink filling water until all he could feel was the sensation of her: the warmth of her cunt, the smooth skin beneath his hands, the smell and taste of her. For that moment he was nothing but the experience of pleasure. The silence and quiet that filled him lasted for what felt like an eternity, a lifetime lived in a peace and warmth he only ever found in nothingness: opium, whiskey, Grace, the ringing in his head after a blow or a blast and now... _her_.

When he regained his senses again he was still worrying her gland with his tongue, long stroking licks meant to introduce the substance in his saliva that helped blood to stop flowing. She was trembling, still dazed from her orgasm and the attention he was paying to her glands. He kissed her gland once, gently, then pushed himself back. She moaned in protest but gentled when he stroked the gland at her wrist.

He undid the ropes that bound her hands carefully. Her legs he would tend to later. He gathered her up to his chest and moved so he was sitting again in his desk chair, her on his lap. He had done it carefully but the shifting it caused of his knot inside of her was enough to wring another, shaking orgasm from them both, her clenching bringing him to cum again within her. He settled her in his lap and began to stroke her thighs, her cunt, her clitoris. He intended to bring her off a few more times before his knot softened enough to allow her to slide out of him.

“Martha!” He called.

The maid opened the door and her eyes widened. She must have heard the sounds Annabelle and he had been making, and he had turned his body so she couldn't see most of Annabelle's body, but clearly she could guess that they were still tied together.

“Yes, Mr. Shelby.” She managed.

“Go upstairs and run your mistress a bath. Tell the rest of the staff not to go into the entrance hall or the upstairs until you see me again.”

“Yes, sir.”

The girl's eyes were barely open. She was boneless in his arms as he stroked her to another climax, then another. In the end she was so overwrought that the only sign she came at all was the little whimper she made and the tell-tale contraction of the muscles that surrounded him. She was making a constant little humming sound in her chest. He pressed his lips together. _Purring, the girl is fucking purring for me_. Omega purring was rare. He'd heard Grace do it the first time she'd held Charlie and a few times at the end of a good Heat. But that had been a long time ago. He'd forgotten how fucking perfect it was, the way it seeped through his chest like warm rain, taking away the pain in his head. Better than fucking opium.

He could have sat like that for hours, holding her, knot held within the warm confines of her and the vibrations of her purring in his chest. But eventually his knot softened and he made himself slide out of her. Her eyes flew open and she made noise of protest. “None of that, sweetheart.” He said as he tucked himself away.

He undid the ropes at her thighs and let them fall, then he picked her up and carried her up the stairs, though the deserted hallway to their bedroom. He put slid off her shoes but put her in the bath with the rest of her clothes on. He undid the clips for the brassiere and garter belt and slipped them off in the warm water, tossing them into a corner for Martha to find later.

She was coming back up from the drowsy, post-knot bliss slowly. He didn't want to leave her alone in the water, lest she fall asleep and slip under. So he lit a cigarette and leaned against the sink, watching her. She caressed her own body a bit beneath the warm water, just light touches on her wrists, her neck, her breasts. She opened her eyes, smiled at him, blinking and in a moment, Annabelle was back, not just the Omega but the girl herself.

She blushed to find herself naked with him still there. He opened his mouth to say that dinner would be at the usual time but if she wanted to eat in the bedroom he would understand. But to his surprise, she spoke first. “I told you I would feel better.”

Another man's eyes would have widened at that. _I told you I would feel better_. What a thing to say for an Omega who had just been knotted across the desk of her Alpha in bonds. What a thing for this teenage aristocrat to say to the Birmingham gangster twice her age who'd opened her glands and cum in her mouth. “So you did.”

She took a deep breath through her nose, scenting him. “You feel better too.”

He took a drag on his cigarette. _Yes, sweetheart, I'm a fucking bastard_. “Yes.”

He knew he should leave, go back down stairs and try to catch up on the work that he had not been able to do in his state of unfocused rage. Instead he said. “Would you like a drink?”

“Yes, please.”

He went out to the bedroom and poured them each a glass of whiskey. He went to the side of the tub and she came to accept it, flipping over onto her stomach, one gamine arm reaching over the side to accept it. “And a cigarette?” She asked hopefully.

He crouched, put down his whiskey, fished out the cigarettes and lit one for her, passing it over.

Then he stood and went back to the sink, taking his own cigarette and whiskey with him. She sat against the side of the tub to be able to reach the whiskey and it shielded her body from his gaze a bit. He could see the bites on her neck but the fact that he couldn't see the rest of her make it a bit easier to think.

She took a drag on the cigarette and said, pensively, “if my options are whore or concubine, I choose concubine.”

He took a sip of his whiskey. “Fair enough.”

“But I don't think that those are my only options. Maybe out there, in the papers, while we're playing Mosley's game, they are.” She said. “But here... between us, I don't want to be your concubine.”

She wasn't looking at him but instead at the mirror behind him where she could see her own face. “I don't want to be locked in the harem, have to tell you a thousand and one tales to keep my head each morning. I don't need you to restrain yourself when you fuck me, or fix my feelings when a newspaper article misquotes me or shows my bites. I don't need you to hold back.”

His laugh was low, humorless. “You think I'm holding back?”

Now she met his eyes. “Yes.”

He took a deep drag on his cigarette and cleared his throat. “I think that is the most you've said to me since the night you told me that you'd have your revenge on Mosley no matter the cost.”

She raised her eyebrow's. “What do you mean?”

“You speak when you're spoken to, because that's what your mother does. You keep your feelings in check when your brother tells you to. You didn't tell that Beta doctor asking me if I wanted your cunt and glands inspected to shut his fucking mouth. Do you think Ada would put up with that fucking shit?” He rubbed a hand over his mouth, trying not to shout. “Its not me whose ever told you that you're a concubine, Annabelle Grant.”

She frowned, thinking.

He knocked back the rest of his whiskey in a single swallow. “And I didn't fix your fucking feelings this afternoon. A bit the other way around, eh?”

From the bathtub, wide blue eyes stared back at him.

He sighed, rubbing his eyes in a tired gesture. “I didn't mean to shout, sweetheart.”

But she didn't smell afraid. “You didn't.”

She tapped a finger to her lips pensively. “You said that first night, in the kitchen at Arrow House that you didn't care what else I did, as long as I obeyed you in the bedroom.”

“Something like that.”

“I don't think it's true.”

“No?”

“You're hard to read. You don't let your scent spike like most people do, you can contain it most of the time. But I can smell it better than most I think, maybe because I know what it smells like so well. And I smell how much you hate it sometimes when I don't finish my plate, when that Beta told me to bite my lip or we talk about me seeing Mosley again.” She smiled. “You just think you _shouldn't_ care about those things.”

“I am an Alpha,” he said quietly. “Among all the other things.”

“None of that, even if you acted on it, would make me less than you. I'm an Omega, among all the other things. I can take your protection, I want it. Like I want your knot, the belt, the bites, the ties.” She swallowed.

He shook his head. “You're talking in riddles.”

“Don't hold back, Thomas.” She said. “I trust you to stop, when I tell you to. You need to trust me to ask you to stop, when I want you to.”

He almost felt like laughing. Like telling her something patronizing like, ' _be careful what you wish for_.' It was too surreal to contemplate, this nineteen-year-old Omega, naked in his bathtub and lecturing him about an excess of restraint.

Maybe what Polly had said, about being careful he didn't influence her taste in other ways was true. Was it possible that she was reflecting back some of his own stubbornness, a bit of Shelby tenacity taking root in the _tabula rasa_ her heat-fasting had enforced on her. _Fucking Pygmalion_. He would have laughed except he wasn't sure the joke wasn't on him yet.

Right, then.

It took him a moment to make up his mind.

It took two steps to cross the distance to the tub to her. He gripped her by the hair and she let her cigarette fall, forgotten. He pulled her forward and she came, letting him yank her to her feet, stumbling over the edge of the bathtub and nearly tripping though he didn't reach to save her. Her wet, pink feet slipped on the slick tile of the bathroom floor, struggling to keep up with him as he moved without hesitation. He pulled her back to the sink and lifted her with a bruising grip on each hip onto the vanity. He gripped her wet knees, ripping them apart without ceremony.

He knelt and glanced up at her. She was so beautiful. Her porcelain skin was rosy from the heat of the water, little patches of pink on each cheek and the upturned tips of her breast were pebbling in the comparatively cool air. Her dark hair had come out of the demure bun at the back of her head a bit from his rough handling and the damp of the room, framing her face in a little halo. She looked frightened and startled as he ran first a hand up her inner thigh, then his lips. He sank his teeth deep into the flesh of her slender thigh. She screamed.

“None of that now, girl.” He growled. “You've scared the fucking maids enough for the day. I'll tell you when I want noise from you.”

He licked the wound for a while, trailing his tongue over it before he let his mouth drift up, pressing soft kisses to her skin. He licked the wound, still dribbling blood, making her tense. The enzymes in his saliva would help to heal. She would have a scar to remind her of this moment unless he attended to it in the coming days and even still she would remember this moment for weeks to come. He parted her folds and bent his head. It too a moment to get her slick flowing enough that he could comfortably put in a finger as she'd just come out of the bath. He added a second but did not oblige her with a third, though the frantic little canting motion of her hips told him she would love another. She had one hand pressed against her lips to stifle any noise but the frantic panting breath through her nose.

“May I... please Alpha... May I?” She begged.

“Yes girl, come for me.”

She came with a little shudder, clenching onto his fingers. He let her enjoy the crest and most of the denouement before he turned his head and gave her another bruising bite, the exact mirror image of the one on the opposite side.

She forgot herself, crying out with a little sobbing whimper.

He stood and pulled her off the vanity, forcing her to her knees with her back against the cabinets beneath the sink. “Open. Your. Mouth.” He growled.

She opened and he pushed in, all the way down until her nose touched his skin. She gagged, spluttering and unprepared but he thrust in without stopping. Trapped as she was against the cabinets she couldn't have pulled her head back even if she'd wanted to. He took her mouth hard, pausing sometimes with her all the way down until she gagged, struggling and wriggling like a fish caught on a line. Her hands never left her thighs thought, never attempted to push him away even when she choked, tears spilling over only rosy cheeks at his rough handling. Then he'd resume thrusting, hard enough to rattle the cabinets behind her head.

“I'm going to knot your mouth, girl, so you best get used to it deep in your throat. You've got until I come to figure out how to relax and let me take what I please.”

Her eyes were wide, terrified, but the smell of her was incandescent with arousal. He felt his knot beginning to swell and thrust in, trapping her head against the cabinets and his hips. His knot was too big to withdraw behind her teeth but he hadn't come yet. It was the little swallowing motions with her throat and the infinitesimal thrusting motions of his hips that finally pushed him over. With a roar, he came down her throat.

When his orgasm had passed he relented, slightly, allowing her a bit more space for her head between him and the vanity. He poured himself another whiskey from the bottle on the counter and lit another cigarette. He stroked her head fondly, looking down at her where she knelt, trapped with her lips pressed against the skin of his abdomen. Her head was trapped between his knees and she couldn't have gotten up even if she wasn't stuck with his cock down her throat because of the way he'd thrown her against the cabinets. There wasn't enough leverage to push herself forward on her knees to rise so instead she had to rely on the pressure he provided with his legs to keep her from sliding down.

With the toe of his stylish shoe he began to rub between her legs, a soft pressure to keep her in the proper mind frame.

“You know what comes next, don't you, eh girl? What you have to look forward to when my knot softens?” He leaned forward, pressing her head back again to the wood of the cabinets beneath the sink, pressing just that little inch forward that made her gag a bit and tear up. A reminder of what he could do, of the power he held over her.

She blinked once, swallowed, her only methods of communication with him.

“I'm going to take you back to the bedroom and spank you for disobeying me. I said I wanted you quiet and you didn't listen. Now I think I'd like to hear you scream again, sweetheart. ”

She fearful little swallow she made in response to that made him groan, enough to bring forth another little jet of his seed down her throat.

He let his head fall back in pleasure, carding his hand through her hair and rocking his hips. “Fuck but your throat feels amazing.” He told her. “And after that, you can put on a nice dress and I'll take you to The Savoy for dinner and a drink so we can see if you can sit down without wincing, or dance with those bites I gave you.”

He pushed forward again to make her choke. “Next time I have a long afternoon of boring paperwork to do I think I'll have you tied here for the majority of it.” He said. “Easier to work with my cock in your throat, then with you on my lap and it will certainly make the experience more enjoyable.”

She moaned, as much as she could, arching on his shoe.

“Like the thought of that, eh? Kneeling under my desk with your mouth around my cock for hours?”

She nodded a bit.

He put down the whiskey and pumped her a bit, just little movements were all she could make but it was enough to let him spurt down her throat again.

He came a few more times before he was soft enough to slip past her teeth.

He helped her to her feet and kissed her gently, tongue parting her lips, tasting his own spend. He kissed each plump lip sweetly and each cheek, tasting the slight salty flavor of her tears. “Time for your beating, eh?”

He led them back to the bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed. He held out his hand and she took it, letting her guide him so she lay over one knee, head hanging down between his legs. He let his hand run over her bottom for a moment, enjoying the smooth skin and supple flesh beneath his hand. “I haven't decided how many to give yet.” He told her. “It will all depend when you scream loud enough I think. Do you understand, sweetheart?”

“Yes, Alpha.”

The first blow she almost jumped off his lap. Normally he would scold her, wait for her to get back into position, instead he closed his knees, trapping her head between his legs and let her have the second blow immediately. By the fourth she was slack and sobbing and her skin was red where he'd struck her. He could tell she was trying for stoicism but by the tenth blow she was really screaming, sobbing though she wasn't struggling against him.

He relented, pulling her up into his arms and letting her cry into his collar.

“You're alright Annabelle, you're alright.” He said. “I'm pleased with you, very pleased with you. You took your lashes and it's over now. No more tonight, I promise.”

When she was done crying he set her back on her feet.

“Did you mean it?” She asked. “About going to The Savory?”

“I meant everything I just said, sweetheart.”

She smiled. “I did hope so.”

She washed her face and put on fresh make up. He called The Savoy and changed into a new suit. She had ruined the shirt with tears and the pants with her slick. She dressed in a gold silk dress, floor length and modestly cut but that hugged her curves perfectly and with a circular cutout in the back that kept her glands and neck modest, while inviting him to slip his fingers in to curl around her ribs or the chain just below the edge of the dress.

The next day in the paper she found the picture in the style section. The tagline was predictable. _Annabelle Shelby (nee Grant), Omega, 19, recently abducted, is shown off by her Alpha, Tommy Shelby, 39, at the fashionable Savoy. The happy couple was married in a fashionable ceremony at St. James last week._

Feeling utterly ridiculous, she found a pair of scissors.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Normally this is where I apologize for how fucked up everything that happened in the chapter was but honestly, grading on the VERY steep curve of this story, this is like... pretty healthy? Yes there is a lot of fucking and beating and biting and blow jobs but like, if you've made it this far, what else did you expect? But don't you think this is progress from Annabelle too? Asking for what she wants, directing Tommy with what she wants and taking control of the situation in her own kind of way. Not that I believe in all that “the man is the head of the family, but the woman is the neck” BS but given how Annabelle was raised, the situation she finds herself in, who I understand her to be as a writer... this is positively bold action on her part. Anyway, let me know what you think, as always please, please, please! :D Twinelove


	13. Chapter 13

In the days that followed Annabelle had the distinct impression that Tommy was testing the sincerity of her assertion that she didn't want him to hold back.

He took her body relentlessly. If she'd thought his appetite for her was voracious before, she realized now that she hadn't even seen near the true measure of it. She was sore between her legs as she hadn't been since the days following her Heat. But more than that, he seemed to be exploring the limits of to what she would submit.

He found her taking tea a few days later in the front parlor. It was a bright, sunny afternoon and he had come back from Parliament earlier than expected. “Oh hello, Tommy, would you care for a cup?” She asked, smiling brightly at him.

He shook his head but stepped into the room, closing the door behind him. He'd hung up his jacket in the hall and remained only in his vest and sleeve garters. “No,” he told her. “No tea, thank you.”

“Something else perhaps? I can ring Martha for some of that nice pie from last night.”

He didn't answer her. “I stopped into a shop on the way back from my meeting. I bought something with you in mind, eh?”

She swallowed. Something in his voice, or perhaps something new in the icy-blue depths of his eyes, seemed to make the air in the room still. He took from under his arm a long package wrapped in fine paper. He ripped open the top and drew out a long, slender length of wood that he handed to her. The wood was as smooth as silk but stiff in her hands, unadorned and about the width of her thumb and a bit longer than the length of her arm.

She turned it over in her hands, testing the weight and flexibility of it.

“What's this?”

“If you had been educated in Birmingham, instead of whatever nice finishing school Omegas in your family historically attend, you'd know that a caning is worse than a beating.” Tommy told. “It don't leave as much of a mark as the buckle of a belt to be sure but the sting of it, well, that isn't something I've forgotten in thirty years and more.”

She swallowed. “No?”

“No.”

Her heart was pounding in her chest and it wasn't worth lying, even to herself, that she wasn't afraid of the cane. She'd taken Tommy's belt enough times to know better than to hope he would hold back. He'd never hit her with anything less than the considerable strength of his arm. And the evil little object in her hand... she shivered. And yet... already she could feel the slick beginning to flow between her legs. He wanted this. And she wanted to give it to him, more than she wanted to save herself from it.

She met his eyes. “Do you want to show me now, Tommy?”

He bit his lip, trying not to smile. He cupped her chin with one hand, sliding a possessive thumb over her lower lips and parting her lips. “Eager girl, aren't you?”

She looked up at him, eyes wide and pupils dilated with lust. “Do you want me to be more demure?”

He bent and brushed a light kiss over her parted lips. “No. I want you to bend over the table and hold as still as you can until I tell you otherwise.”

“Now?”

“Now.”

He let go of her chin and she stood. She moved the tray carefully to one side, putting her cup and saucer on it. Then she put her hands on the tea table and walked them forward until she was bent at the waist. She was dressed in a tartan skirt and a loose white blouse with short puff sleeves. He came to stand behind her, out of her view. He slid his hands over her slim shoulders, unbuttoning a few of the top buttons and sliding his hands in, to cup one breast and reveling in the way she trembled at his touch. He pushed up the skirt next, bunching it about her waist and running his hands over the plump globes of her ass. He hooked his fingers into the band of her bloomers and slid them down.

“Open your mouth, sweetheart.”

When she obeyed, he put the slick-soaked garment into her mouth, pushing it with his first two fingers until the entirety of the cloth was behind her teeth.

He leaned close, pressing his powerful thighs against hers, to murmur to her. “This parlor is close to the street, isn't it? And I don't expect you to be able to keep your voice down for this. I'm not planing on holding back, so scream all you like into your knickers.” With one shoe he nudged her legs apart, sliding one large thigh between her legs to let her feel for a moment how vulnerable she was to him.

His blood was pounding in his head as he looked at her, spread before him. He rubbed a hand over his face, half expecting to wake up, and fighting of competing desires. _Fuck her_. _Beat her_. _Claim her_. He fished in his vest pocket for his cigarettes and lit one. With the hand not busy with the cigarette he slid a finger over her sopping slit, teasing her. “Jesus, but this slit is never not wet for me.”

Her only response was a little whimper, muffled a bit by her gag, and to cant her hips at a better angle for him to fuck her.

“Hold your hips there, girl. While I beat you. Nod your head to show me you understand what I want.”

She nodded.

He took a deep drag on the cigarette and let the nicotine clear his head before he moved next. He put the cigarette down in the groove of an ash tray. The first crack of the cane across her ass was like fire blooming across it. He had been right to gag her: her scream was unrestrained. Even muffled as it was it would be audible from the street. She arched her back, tears leaking out as the first red streak bloomed across the tender globes of the peach spread before him.

He waited until her sobs had died down to little quaking trembles and then gave another. Again, her wail was muffled by the bloomers in her mouth. Her head was turned to the right and he could see the tears leaking from her eyes as he gave her three more strokes with the cane.

She was limp, boneless and sobbing continuously when he was finished. He put down the cane and the cigarette and parted her red, tender flesh with his hands, fingers curling over his hips with bruising force. He opened his trousers with one hand and guided himself the warm, waiting slit. He slid the head of his cock along the length of her slit once. A few of the blows had landed on her tender lips and as he pushed in she screamed again against her gag, clenching on him in pain but pushing back too, welcoming him. He took her hips in hand and began to pump, not hurrying himself for her sake.

He slapped her red ass cheek none too gently. “Fuck me back, girl. Show me that you want it.”

She began to rock back and forth on him. Her thighs were trembling and her muscles clenched against him in pain to do it but she obeyed. When he stopped moving, she did not slow. He used his hands to tilt her hips to the right angle and allowed her for a moment to please him.

But in the end, he wanted only to fuck her.

With another slap on her ass, he began to fuck her too fast for her to follow. Her hips slammed against the table. Her head was turned to one side and she watched her teacup rattle hard enough to spill over the milky liquid, hard enough she was afraid it would break. The rough, expensive fabric of his trousers grated against her tender thighs, as he plunged into her. He slammed her against the table with abandon, without consideration for her thighs or her feelings.

“Fuck girl, your cunt is perfect.”

The moaning of her orgasm was caught up by the panties he'd stuffed into her mouth but the fluttering of her muscles around him gave away her orgasm. He bent over her, fingers finding hers on the table and curling between them, pinning them down. Through the expensive white cotton of her shirt his mouth found her gland without hesitation or pause.

He pushed his teeth against it, letting her feel how easy it would be for him to penetrate the thin skin. Then he spilled into her with a groan, filling her up. Consciousness rolled back, as it always did when he was within her, a silence and sanctity descending on them both. His hands still gripped her ass cheeks. Her hips were small enough that his large hands could curl around them completely, fingers digging into her hip bones and thumbs on either side of her lips spread her beautifully.

When he was spent and back to himself he pulled out and tucked himself away, straightening his trousers. Before him she lay spread: her slick and his cum drooling down one slender thigh and the red stripes of where he'd hit her blooming across her ass like lines of summer roses. He let himself enjoy the sight of her for a long moment. A fucking viscountess and here she was, spread over the tea table, no better than any whore of Birmingham.

The cigarette he'd left had burned out in the time it took to fuck her. So he lit another, tiling his head back and letting the moment stretch out. The sunlight, the girl, the smell of tea and her slick, and the sight of her beaten flesh.

“Mr. Shelby, there's someone on the phone for you sir.” The nervous voice of a maid said through the door.

“Fine, Nancy. I'll take it here.”

The phone on the desk rang and Tommy took the call. She wished she could turn her head to look at him but knew better than to do so without permission. The cord of the phone was long enough to reach the tea table and she heard his footsteps approach again, the thud of the base of the phone as he put it down next to her hip.

One strong hand found her wrist, then the other and brought them together at her lower back so that her palms face each other. She heard the snick of a rope being pulled free of it's knot and then the press of it against her wrist. She shivered as he began to bind her wrists together. He bound her elbows next, as tightly as possible such that her shoulder were pulled back right at the edge of what she could tolerate.

“As I said, Gideon, Arthur has my full support on the matter with the Boswells. Micheal is a fine money manager but he's no Blinder, not like those of us that were there in the old days...”

When he was finished binding her elbows he pulled her up from the table by the ropes that were strung between them. The effect of the ropes was to force her back to bow dramatically, like a Sabine women being carried off in some statue. It was no effort at all to send her to her knees between his legs as he sat in her unoccupied chair.

He held out his hand for her in front of her mouth and, blushing, she spat out her panties with as much decorum as she possibly could. He pocketed the sick-soaked garment without remark, then unzipped himself again and snapped his fingers once to indicate that she should proceed. It was not easy to shuffle forward enough to get her mouth on him with her hands bound. He offered her no help as she bent, straining to get her mouth around him. He was only half hard, still recovering from fucking her over the table, and difficult to get into her mouth for that.

“I don't doubt that I'll be there in the next few weeks, once the session is over. Until then, you'll have to manage. Tell Arthur that the Lees can be trusted if their paid correctly. And tell Micheal that the payment can come out of petty cash. It's a small risk but worth it.”

She slid her mouth along him as she knew he liked, gazing up at him as he spoke. He wasn't looking at her, staring off into the middle distance, seemingly intent on the phone conversation, as if oblivious of the girl on her knees before him, working to get her lips around his cock. She managed to take the head into her mouth with some effort, wrapping her lips around him and beginning to stroke. The smell and taste of him was warm and masculine, slightly bitter but comforting. She could taste herself on him too, a little bit of her own slick left on the soft skin.

She began to work, letting him harden in her mouth. She went slow, knowing he liked her not to rush but to draw out his pleasure. The night before he had made good on his promise to knot her mouth while he finished his paperwork and it had taken hours. She had gone to bed with an aching jaw. She took long, slow strokes, swirling her tongue over his head at the top and flattening it out to run along the seam beneath him. He took a deep drag on his cigarette. When he was fully hard he covered the receiver with the hand that held the cigarette and looked down at her.

“All the way down, sweetheart, there's a good girl.”

She struggled to obey. It was hard enough to accept him into her throat under the best of circumstances but without her hands to brace her or his help, it was nearly impossible. Still she tried, choking and sputtering and wondering if the man on the telephone could hear the noises she was making, and if he could if he would guess where they were coming from. Slick was drooling out of her and she shifted her legs, hoping to keep it from getting on her skirt. Besides, her ass bouncing on her heels was still inflamed, impossible to ignore.

Above her, Tommy put aside his cigarette, in favor of taking her head in his hand, tangling it in her hair so he could control her movements. He pulled her back and then guided her down to the base, pressing her face down to the knot and allowing her to lick and suckle the flesh there.

“It's not a question of the seriousness of the situation in Birmingham. It's a question of priorities.” Tommy said. “The work in London comes first. I'll sort out the rest when this is finished here.”

There was a moment where the other man on the phone spoke and Tommy guided her up with the hand in her hair. She ran her tongue, wide and open, along the seam of his weapon, circling the head once with her tongue before she wrapped her lips around him and he pushed her down again, far enough that she gagged a bit.

“I'll call Arthur if it comes to it, but for now you'll have to make do without me.”

He put down the receiver of the phone and closed both hands around her head and began to pump her in earnest. She rose up on her knees, unable to take him so deep at the angle he'd chosen. With her hands tied behind her back she was completely unable to resist him, off balance, nearly falling forward when he pulled her down on him. He held her there, nose against the flat expanse of his stomach until her head began to swim with the lack of oxygen.

He pulled her off and his eyes were nearly black with lust. “More, girl?”

She nodded, unable to speak, gasping.

It took only a few more thrusts until his head fell back and his hot seed flooded her mouth. She gulped, trying to keep up, trying not to suffocate. When he was finished he did not pull out. She let him lay within her mouth for a long moment as he came back. When he was no longer in the the throws of his passion he let her suckle him for a moment. Then he tucked himself back away.

He pushed a thumb lazily into her mouth and she sucked it submissively. He opened her mouth with his thumb, running it over her tongue with casual mastery.

She gazed up at him.

“I like it here.” She told him. “I like to be on my knees, at your feet. I wish I could do it all the time.”

Dangerous that. He pushed away the sudden rush of warmth, flowing from his chest into his abdomen, at her words. There was no use in exploring what _that_ meant. The girl in front of him had made it perfectly clear what she wanted from him. And, more importantly, what she did not want from him. There were limits, he reminded himself. She had opened more doors to him than he had expected, welcomed him and his _predilections_ (as Polly had called them) more than he'd had any reason to expect. And that would have to be enough, he reminded himself firmly.

She had given enough, hadn't she? Her virginity, her glands, her body whenever he asked and her cooperation in bringing down Mosley. She didn't owe him the rest of what he wanted: a baby, her Mating gland. Hell, she didn't owe him anything, truth be told. And so, to want things so desperately... Jesus, what a weakness.

He took her by the arm, pulling her over his knee so her bound hands were in front of him. He pulled free the knots he'd tied and then righted her, straightening her skirt and the buttons of her skirt until, except for a few wrinkles, she looked just as she had when he'd entered the room.

“Right, take the cane upstairs for me, sweetheart. I'll want you kneeling on the bed at six sharp. I'll take this to your skin again before dinner again.”

“Yes, Tommy.”

He stood, and left the room.

Only a few evenings later, he sent Martha to tell her he wanted her in his office. She had been dressing for a fundraiser for the Omega war widows that the BUF had organized, but quickly put the finishing touches on the fashionable hairstyle, embellished with pearls and fine rosebuds. When she appeared he was dressed for the evening already, hair already slicked back an dress suit on, the jacket hanging on the hat pole. He had a glass of whiskey in one hand and the shoulder holster was already on, pistol in place. She wasn't sure she would ever grow used to the press of the gun underneath his jacket, the idea of all that it represented, but the sight of it no longer frightened her as it once had.

The dress she wore was the color of a bruise—a deep purple that was too blue to be described as royal purple—and cut daringly. It was tailored for her exactly with a high collar and simple skirt that fell to her ankles. The front plunged low, almost to her naval and her arms were bare. She looked like some Greek Goddess, borne to him on a cloud of foam.

“Right. Shut the door and come here.” He said, swallowing the rest of the whiskey in his glass and pouring himself another finger. “Bend over the desk and I'll do the rest.”

She gaped at him until he snapped his fingers impatiently, pointing toward the desk. “Come on, sweetheart, I haven't got all night, eh?”

She stumbled forward, mutely. When she was within reach he took her by the nape of the neck and one bare upper arm, and bent her without ceremony over the desk. She turned her head, cheek pressed against the hard wood and, out of the corner of her eye was able to see him as he undid his belt and unzipped his pants. He was already hard when he took himself out but he gave himself a few lazy strokes before he rucked up her skirt, pulled down the small clothes beneath, and took her by the hips.

She wasn't ready for him, and he did not take the time he normally did to prepare her. His long fingers gripped her thighs, spreading her enough for him to push the blunt tip of his cock into her slit. She winced and gasped at the first strokes but knew better than to take her head from where he'd put it on the desk.

He used her fast and brutally. The slamming of her legs against the edge of the desk were almost sure to leave bruises but he did not slow or reduce the power of his strokes. Neither did he move to caress or stroke her as he normally did. The weight of him however pressed her pubic symphysis against the surface of the desk however and the feeling of him sliding in an out of her soon had her panting for another reason. Slick began to lubricate his thrusts and her muscles began to flutter against him.

He let out a small noise, a muted expression of amused disbelief and gripped her hips harder. “Fucking incorrigible, eh?” He told her, unable to keep the fondness from his voice. “Fucked over my desk for no more than a minute, and already you're sopping.”

He slapped her ass when she said nothing. “Tell me, 'yes, Tommy' to that.”

“Yes, Tommy.”

“Take my cock whenever I want, eh?”

“Yes, Tommy.”

She had no doubt she would have come, given just a few more minutes. But with the head start he'd given himself, she soon felt him flex within her and with a groan, spill into her. His fingers tightened on her hips and she could see his head fall back in pleasure. Omega pride swelled in her breast, a content, warm feeling. _Pleased Alpha, let him take you as he likes. Likes you. Good girl. Good Omega._

When he had spent himself, he slid out of her with another groan. She made to stand but a sharp slap on her ass froze her in place. “I didn't tell you to get up.”

“Yes, Tommy.”

He tucked himself away and did up his zip and belt again. In a moment he looked just as fresh as he had when she came in, as if the interlude had never occurred. She however remained bent over the desk, bloomers around her knees and their combined spend leaking down one thigh. With one hand he parted her cheeks and ran a finger down her slit. “This fucking cunt eh, made for me.”

“Yes, Tommy.”

He let a nail scrape, very gently, over the puckered little hole above her slit. He smiled when she jumped, eyes widening. “Someday, I think I might just fuck your ass Annabelle.”

She swallowed. She knew what the act of sodomy was from the bible and the Greeks but had never considered that the act might be applied to her own person.

“Never was something I enjoyed overmuch,” he told her, “but to watch you let me, to be the first to take you there... I think I could make an exception.”

“Yes, Tommy.”

He moved out of her vision again and she heard him take something out of the desk drawer on the side her head wasn't turned toward.

“Up, sweetheart.”

Hesitantly she pushed herself up. She pulled up her briefs, arranging the skirt to let it fall again and brushing it down into place. She was grateful for the single ornamentation of the gown, a little curling rose of silk that seemed to rise organically from the material at her hip and drew little ripples across the skirt that would hide the wrinkles from his rough handling.

He turned her by the hips. “Kneel.”

She thought about protesting on behalf of the dress but decided against it. There would be more wrinkles still if he decided to take her over his knee. Instead she tried to arrange it as best she could smoothly as he did as he bid. She could see he was already half hard again as he took something out of the slim case he'd taken from the desk drawer.

He lay the item across across one large thigh, then leaned back, taking a drag on his cigarette.

Six strands of pearls lay together, intermittently interspersed with a band of rose gold to give it structure, and matched by a rose gold lock at the back. Not a clasp, but a lock. _A collar_. Two centuries ago it had been taboo for an Omega with a title to appear without one in public, once she was bonded to an Alpha. Anne Boleyn had worn the one given her by Henry VIII to be beheaded, rather than appear without it. These days it was not uncommon to see Omegas wear them at special occasions and, but they served more the purpose of any other necklace: to emphasize the wealth and the status of the wearer (or more correctly, the wearer's Alpha).

She did not have to run her fingers through the pearls to know that somewhere within them was a cleverly disguised hook, meant for a decorative lead that Tommy could hold. Out of the corner of her eye she could see something else in the box, a long slender length of rose gold chain with a handle of buttery leather on the end. And once he put it on her, turned the key in the lock, only he would be able to take it off. This version was clearly quite a costly representation and she knew from the style of it, made recently. The locking mechanism was custom made, made to be opened by the pattern engraved on the signet ring he already wore. _TS_ : the initials on the lock were as if he had pressed his seal to her neck.

She glanced up. The piece was clearly expensive, enough to be an heirloom, she could tell without even touching it.

He seemed to know the question in her furrowed brow. “This one is made for you. Part of a set of pearls I intend to fuck you in.”

“It's too much Tommy.”

He caressed her hair fondly. “I'll say when it's too much, eh.” One thumb trailed over her lips, parting them slightly. “The question is, do you accept it?”

It would be strategic for her to put the necklace on. Being brought to the function in a collar was the exact kind of thing that Mosley would expect of her. For an Omega newly bitten and besotted with her Alpha, it would be a pleasure to wear his collar.

Tommy seemed to see that thought in her face as well for he took her thumb between his fingers, jerking her head rather roughly. “None of that, sweetheart. I'll not have you think of him when you decide to take my collar. Either you want it or you don't, eh, Annabelle?”

She nodded, mute, stunned by the sudden fury into a moment of unrestrained honesty. “I want it, Tommy.”

She could feel his anger rising, and with it could see his erection growing in his pants. One hand slid down to her throat while the other undid his trousers and freed himself. “Why don't you show me how much you want it, eh?”

He took the free hand and put it on the back of her head, guiding her down to his cock before she had a chance to answer him. She pressed a fluttering kiss to the head before he parted her lips with it and pushed her down. He sunk himself to the hilt, allowing her no time for resistance. He pumped her up and down on himself for a few moments until he was fully hard. He was big enough that she never got used to the sight of him, much less the feel of him splitting her open in any of the various ways he took her.

Then he pulled her back. She was gasping and sputtering as always. She would have to touch up her makeup before they left, never mind if she got any of her own drool or his spend on her dress.

He took the collar from where it lay on his thigh and very, very slowly, bent forward. The pearls were almost cold, compared to the burning heat of his fingers and she shivered as they made contact with her skin. The soft, silky feeling of them against her neck was arousing in its own way, almost as if they were human fingers, _his_ fingers, at her neck. He paused for a moment, as if to give her time to protest.

 _Click_.

The sound of the locking mechanism falling into place made her bite her lip to keep from moaning. _Alpha wants the world to know that we are his property_. The Omega voice within her was practically a cooing sigh of delight and she felt a gush of slick slide out of her. It was surprisingly tight. She couldn't remember a tailor measuring her neck but they must have at some point for it was just at the limit of restricting her ability to breathe, while still allowing him to close the lock easily. That was no doubt intentional, something that would make her aware of the collar every moment that it was on, a constant reminder of her submission to him. _I hope he never takes it off_.

He took a moment to admire the look of it around her throat before pushing her head back down to resume her work. The collar made taking him into her throat harder. His cock at best made her swallow helplessly against it, trying to pass the girth of it down. At its worst it made her splutter and choke—all reactions made more difficult by the constricting pearls at her neck. Even gasping for air when he pulled her roughly off of him to give her a break was harder.

“Put your hands behind your back. Cross your wrists like they're bound or they will be shortly.” He told her in a voice low with lust.

She obeyed, crossing her wrists behind her and letting him push himself deeper into her throat despite the discomfort. But she obliged. She gave him her mouth, her throat without complaint, lathing him with her tongue when he went slowly and bracing herself when he went too fast for any response other than to let her muscles go as limp as they could.

It took longer than usual, as he'd just come. Her jaw was aching and her knees were nearly rubbed raw against the carpet when finally he tilted his head back and, with a groan, filled her mouth with his cum. The taste of him was salty and potent—a mix of flavors like tannin and whiskey and gunpowder---but not unpleasant. She swallowed gratefully.

She looked up at him, lips still wrapped around him. His face in repose was almost innocent, an incongruous expression for the man who had her on her knees or across his desk at a word. Just for a moment the indomitable will of him seemed to lessen it's hold on him and the beauty of his features, perhaps the boy he had been long ago, showed through. She loved these moments. Even as aroused as she was by the collar, the fucking over the desk, his mastery over her, she knew that there was more to it than just that.

Once, on holiday in Greece, her father had taken Patrick and her out on a boat over water so clear that it looked as if the sandy white bottom below them were no more than a few feet away. Nothing like the lochs they'd grown up with, the two children had been fascinated, peering over the edge of the boat as the fishes swam by. But no one had needed tell Annabelle that the water was not truly shallow. She had known it with an instinct in her bones that if she fell over the side her feet would not touch the bottom.

She did not need to be told either that what she felt for Thomas Shelby, in the moments where the two of them forgot themselves, was a danger to her.

When he was inside of her, moving in her, finding his own release, even outside or her Heat, it was always a struggle not to present for him, to offer him her Mating gland. She had been able to resist since that first time but she had never been one to lie to herself. It was not getting easier, to deny the Omega voice within her that wanted to beg for him to claim her. _Anything Alpha wants... give him anything... just let him Claim us. If he has not it is because he is not please, because we have failed_.

She held the position he had commanded as he came back to himself. Both hands had tangled in her hair at the end, controlling her head with an overpowering force. He let one slide to her chin, gathering up a big of his spend that had overflowed her mouth with his large thumb and offering it to her to lick away. She did, obediently.

He blew out a breath at the sight of her tongue obediently sliding along the edge of his thumb, lapping up the remnants of him. “Right,” his voice was low and rough. “Clean me off then, sweetheart.”

She cleaned him with her tongue, lapping gently at the shaft. He was still half hard when he finally tapped her cheek to let her know she could put him away. She tucked him back into his trousers, zipped him up and re-buckled the belt.

When he didn't move to stand or tell her otherwise she allowed herself to leave her hands resting on his thighs Since her lipstick had long been smeared off, she let herself press a soft kiss to to one large leg through the expensive material that clad his legs, then rested her chin on his knee. He watched her through hooded eyes as she pressed another kiss to his knee, fingers sliding over the muscles of his thighs.

He fished his cigarettes out and lit one, watching her.

She hadn't been satisfied herself and a large part of her still burned for satisfaction. The smell of her slick soaking her bloomers beneath her was as potent as it had ever been but his own release had been at least a partial relief for her. The weight of the collar around her neck, a physical representation of his command over her, the knowledge that she had please him had transformed the feeling from a raging inferno of need into a dull, aching ember of desire in her belly. She had no doubt that it would take him the work of no less than a minute to stoke her back into what she had been and more but for the moment, he seemed content with her as she was.

He allowed her to stay there for the duration of his cigarette, letting her stroke his thighs lightly. She pressed soft kisses along the top of his thigh, then lay her cheek on his knee, her fingers still stroking soothing patterns. He himself brush the long fingers of his free hand gently through her hair, a stroking, soothing motion.

Finally though, he leaned forward and stubbed out his cigarette. “Better fix your face again, I think, sweetheart. I'll make one more phone call and then we should be off, eh?”

She went back upstairs and Martha helped her arrange her hair again as she freshened up her makeup. The skirt had fared better than she might have hoped, the elegant lines created by the fanciful rose hiding a multitude of sins. Knowing she might be punished for the act later, she slid off the sodden bloomers, wiping away the excess slick with them as best she could, before re-donning a fresh pair. She would still smell strongly of him, having been so recently used, but she didn't want to show up smelling so clearly aroused.

He was on the phone when she came down again. His office door was open however so he saw her pass. He met her gaze through the door and, without pausing as he spoke, snapped his fingers once, pointing to the carpet in front of his chair where she had knelt before.

She didn't need to be told twice.

Closing the door behind her she came in and knelt again between his legs, where he had indicated. She looked up at him as he continued to speak on the phone, not seeming to pay her any attention. “Not while parliament is still in session, Arthur.” He told whoever was on the phone. “I can come up to see my constituency when it's over in a few weeks, but before that it would be irregular. Mosley would ask questions.”

She could hear the other man begin to speak on the phone. Tommy put the transmitter back on the desk, out of range of where the other man could hear him speak, cupping the receiver between his ear and shoulder.

“Mouth open, sweetheart. Hands behind your back.”

She obeyed.

He took the jewelry box from the top of the desk and took out the leash that she'd seen before. It was long, perhaps the length of her arms from fingertip to fingertip, made of delicate looking links of rose gold. At one end there was a fine clip to attach to her collar, the other was a simple gold ring.

Meeting her eyes, clearly focused on her for any sign of hesitation, he tilted her head up with one finger so her eyes faced the ceiling and her neck and collar were exposed. She couldn't help but swallow, heart beating furiously in her chest. Strong fingers found her neck, moving with surety as he clipped the lead into the subtle little ring beneath the pearls.

He took a moment to admire her for a second: throat bared to him, his collar around it and on her knees before him. Christ, she was a picture he would remember until his dying day. Nothing more his Alpha could want... _except a mark on her Mating gland, a child in her belly_. The image of her in this position, naked and pregnant was enough to make his teeth clench and his cock stir to life instantly in his pants. _Fuck_. Her little body, swollen to bursting with a babe that belonged to him. She'd have difficulty with balance so he'd take her firmly by the hair to guide her down before him, swollen and aching breasts like fruit ripe enough to burst. He would part her legs with a foot, running the expensive leather of a shoe between her tender, fertile lips below until she groaned.

Omega pregnancy was an almost sacred time in the eyes of an Alpha. The hormones they produced in order to keep the pregnancy viable were intense. That, coupled with their need to reassure themselves that their Alpha was still there, still interested and protective, was enough to keep an Omega in a low-grade Heat. Annabelle, already so ripe and luscious and ready for him, would be insatiable.

 _And so fucking obedient_. He would make sure of that. Wide blue eyes would gaze up at him, all innocence and submission, soft, pink lips wrapped around his cock as she serviced him. He would take her head in both hands and use her mouth as slowly or as quickly as he pleased, because then she really would have given him everything he wanted.

Everything the Alpha wanted anyway.

Tommy Shelby, the man, was beginning to want something else from the girl in front of him.

It was possible he wouldn't have noticed it was missing so easily, wouldn't have noticed it at all, if it hadn't been for Grace. In the first days he had known his first wife there had been moments between them that had nothing to do with their designations, where the Alpha and the Omega seemed to be forgotten. Dancing a gay little Charleston with her, even in the midst of Billy Kimber and a war with the Lees, he'd been able to smile. Even troubled by the Russians and dirty work that needed doing, when she put her head against his knee he had been able to forget the rest of the world.

Annabelle was more of a girl than Grace had been, less serious perhaps by age or circumstance or constitution. Other than the adventure that had entangled their lives together, she had lived a relatively sheltered life compared to his first wife. Grace had been a spy when they had met, a woman who had stabbed a man in an ally for the crown and shot a man in the front room of the Garrison for him. He couldn't imagine the little Viscountess kneeling before him ever doing that.

And yet, there were moments between them when he wanted more than just her glands, her cunt, her mouth. The night that she'd told him not to hold back, when he'd taken her to dance, she'd been practically giddy at the Savoy. The beating, the champagne, the fast music and lights and people... something had set her to laughing. The feeling of it against his chest as he held her against him and whirled her around to the music had been... as it had been with Grace.

He pushed the word that rose to mind away. She hadn't bargained for that. _You won't bite my mating gland, not ever_? _No, Annabelle, I will not_. He hadn't said the words _I will not get you pregnant_ , _I will not fall in love with you_. But he might as well have.

He forced himself to refocus on what Arthur was telling him on the phone. There had been threats from the Boswells against the Blinders, the family, him in particular. Arthur wanted him to come to Birmingham, to help setting the matter and to get him out of the relatively undefended house.

He let his fingers trail over the smooth column of her throat, enjoying the juxtaposition of the texture of her soft skin and the pearls. Already they were warm from her body, and felt more alive than when he'd taken them out of the jewelry box.

He tugged experimentally on the lead and was pleased when he had to catch her by the shoulders as she nearly toppled over. The jeweler had told him that in addition to the rose gold other materials had been worked into the lead and the collar to give it strength beyond the usual malleable metal.

The older man, a widowed Omega by his smell, had smiled softly when he'd presented Tommy with his work. “It's a lovely piece sir, decorative, as it's wearer is. But, like her too, stronger than it looks.” He'd said. “You'll not break it sir, no matter what force you exert.”

He folded the lead over in his hand, choking up on it until he held it only a hands breath from the collar, exerting a tight control and guiding her forward. She shuffled on her knees until she was nearly flush against him. Her upturned chin rested against his waistcoat and her breasts were pressed against the half-hard cock in his pants. Her mouth was still dutifully open and he slipped a thumb in. She didn't need to be told to suck it gently, as if it were his cock.

He relented at that though, allowing her to relax, pillowing her cheek on his thigh. He didn't think he could fuck her face with Arthur's voice in his ear. Nor did they have the time for anything like what would satisfy him, not if they were going to be only a little more than fashionably late.

He closed his eyes and made himself think of Boswells, Arthur, Micheal and the plan for what was to come.

“Like I said, parliament's session will end in two weeks and I'll come then. For now, tell Micheal that he'll need to send some men to help the Lee's. They'll need to not dress as Peaky boys—no caps, no razor blades. The Boswells will know they're no Lee boys, which means the Billy Boys will too but Mosley won't understand the difference if it isn't spelled out to him. To him we're all the same anyway unless we wear our allegiances on our sleeves.”

Arthur snorted. “I don't like it Tom, and neither will the men. They'll take orders from Micheal when it comes to the adding up or the legal stuff. But taking the command to slit a throat, to take off your cap from a man whose never had to do either... well, it's not going to go over well.”

“Then you give the command, brother.”

“They need to see you, Sargent Major. The troops have the right to see the General before a battle, even the fucking army knows that.”

“We aren't at war yet.”

Arthur snorted. “Ada showed up this morning with Karl. They're at the old house at Watery Lane. Polly's back at her old house too. She says you and the missus are coming sooner than you think.”

“I thought she was off spirits and the fucking like.”

“Apparently not.”

“Well tell Polly that we'll be there when session ends.”

He hung up the phone and with a sigh, lit a cigarette. He turned over the lead in his hand and found a hidden clasp to release it from the end of the chain. He took off the leather handle and put it back in the box, selecting instead a simple circle of matching rose gold. He took out the double Albert watch chain at his waist and unclipped the second chain from his watch, instead clipping it to the end of her leash instead. He put both back into his waistcoat pocket.

This lead was intended to allow him to be unencumbered by the need to have her leash in his hands at all time, while still allowing him to keep her near.

He helped her to her feet.

“Was that your brother?” She asked, brushing her skirt back into place as he shrugged on his jacket. Ada had told her that Tommy had two brothers but that John had died a few years past.

“Yes, Arthur.”

“He wants you to go to Birmingham?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

She had half expected him to brush her off with a quick kiss and a 'never you mind, sweetheart.' Instead, he considered for a moment before saying, “there's tensions rising with some... business partners in the north. A family that we do business with is experiencing encroachment onto their territory of business.”

“Is there going to be fighting? You said 'we're not at war yet.'”

Now came the kiss on the forehead, a light brush of his lips over her skin and he pulled her against him, folding her into his jacket. But the words were not what she had expected. Instead of a dismissal or a lie, his tone was tired but direct. “Yes, there will be. Two gypsy families, the Boswells and the Lees will go to war before the summer is over. And we will intercede on behalf of the Lees.”

“Why?”

“We cannot afford to lose them as allies. Not in business, not in politics.”

“And you will go to Birmingham, to take part it?”

“Yes.”

Tommy was surprised at how natural it felt to have her leashed to him. If he had expected that they would get tangled in the chain or that it would cause other problems, he had underestimated the attention that Annabelle and others would pay to it. She never seemed to be at his elbow but neither did he feel a tug on the chain once as they were presented to the hosts and mingled with the crowd at the edge of the dance floor.

He plucked a glass of champagne off the tray of a passing waiter and ordered a whiskey with water for himself. He saw a man he knew from the Labor party, someone he'd worked on a number of bills with in the past, and guided them over to where he stood.

“I wouldn't have thought to find you here, Charles.” He said. “Considering joining us in the BUF?”

The man smiled thinly. “Not on your life, Shelby. But war widows are not a political fight. I support the cause... even if I don't support the men organizing it.”

“Didn't want to miss seeing who else turned up to eat our of our palm, eh?”

A bit more genuine warmth flowed into the man's expression. “I'd forgotten what a breath of fresh air you are. Someone who knew you only a little less than I did might say you were the only honest man in parliament.”

“Oh I doubt anyone who knew more more than a minute would say that.” Tommy said agreeably. “But let me introduce you to my wife, Mrs. Annabelle Shelby. Annabelle, meet Mr. Charles Winthrop.”

The man turned to her with real interest. It was clear enough that he had read her story in the newspaper and was no curious to see how the reality matched up to the fiction in the newspaper.

He regarded her for a long moment, then stuck out his hand to shake. She glanced at Tommy who only raised one eyebrow in amusement. “Mr. Winthrop is a great believer in equality between the designations, as well as a great proponent of the advancement of science. I believe he's trying to conduct a little experiment, to see what we will do when faced with the opportunity for you to touch another Alpha in front of me.”

She didn't mind the smell of Winthrop. His scent was not compelling to her, nothing like the smell of Tommy, but neither was it repugnant. He smelled to her like ink and books and tea with a little bit too much milk for her taste-- a mild scent that she couldn't imagine him trying to crowd her with.

The man himself blushed slightly, dropping his hand a fraction. “Of course, not fair of me to sport with a lady I've just met. You must forgive me Mrs. Shelby, I had mean no offense...” He began to apologize.

She took his hand and gave it a single shake before dropping it again. “It is a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Winthrop.”

The other man glanced at Tommy, who was still looking rather amused at the turn of events. Then turned to Annabelle. “I was sorry to read about your story in the paper, Mrs. Shelby. I'm only glad it seems to have ended so well for you.”

“Thank you, good of you to say so, sir.”

A few more people joined their group, mostly members of parliament or men who worked high up in the government in other ways. Annabelle was introduced to Mrs. Winthrop, a Beta, who returned from the refreshments table with a plate for herself that she shared with her husband. She was, by her accent and her carriage, of quite a higher birth than her husband, who, in Annabelle's estimation, had likely made his own fortune but, unlike Tommy, probably legally.

A few other women had also joined the group, wives of the men. All were Omegas and nearly half wore collars like Annabelle. They were all quite pleasant to Annabelle but it was Mrs. Winthrop who she found most engaging in the end. She had apparently been to the building they were in many times as a child to visit an Aunt who had lived there, before she had passed away and the property and grounds had been donated to a historic preservation society. She had a great deal of information about the house and grounds that Annabelle found fascinating, particularly in regards to a series of paintings of the Scottish highlands done by a painter who hailed from very near Castle Scone.

“Mr. Shelby, do excuse me if I take your wife up to see the Dunsmore paintings on the second floor, won't you?” She said, turning to Tommy.

“Of course, Mrs. Winthrop.”

He took out the watch chain and neatly slipped off the ring from it's clasp. He took Annabelle's hand and slid the ring over her wrist so she wore the end of the lead as a bracelet. He brushed a thumb over the gland at her wrist, a subtler version of brushing a kiss over her lips but one that made her shiver nonetheless.

She and Mrs. Winthrop mounted the stair to the second floor and spent nearly the next hour pouring over the paintings together. Annabelle knew quite a bit about the countryside depicted and charmed her companion by relaying to her stories of the little villages or her life in the countryside.

“I had never thought I longed to see Scotland before, but you do make it sound very charming indeed.”

“You do me credit. I'm sure my mother would love to receive you and Mr. Winthrop at Scone Castle any time you would care to drop by.”

“Hmmm... I might just take you up on that, if the offer is sincere.”

“Very sincere indeed.”

She frowned. “I only wonder if Charles won't refuse.”

“Not one for country driving?”

“No... it isn't that.” She bit her lip.

Annabelle didn't have to ask what she meant by that. Though Mr. Winthrop and Tommy clearly had some level of mutual respect for each other, it was not the kind of relationship that would allow their wives to be close friends, nor for them to visit each other's houses. For a moment, she felt slightly sad about it. She had known that the alliance she had struck with Tommy would have social repercussions, had thought she was ready for them, but still, there was a pang of disapointment.

But Mrs. Winthrop turned back to the painting for a moment to let the subject pass. Though when she spoke next, it was clear that her thoughts had followed a similar trajectory to Annabelle's. “You know... you aren't exactly what I was expecting, after reading the papers.”

Annabelle blushed. She knew exactly which articles the other woman was referring to. “Not everything printed about me has been... strictly accurately quoted, I'm afraid to say.”

The other woman pressed her lips together. “But neither you nor your husband have ever been quoted as opposing the... image of you that has been portrayed. To be perfectly frank, Mrs. Shelby, it is quite in line with the rhetoric of your husband's political party, is it not?”

“I suppose so.”

Mrs. Winthrop tapped her lips. “And yet, neither of you seem to act, between the two of you, as I had expected you to. Not to say that the two of you would not fulfill anyone's platonic ideal of Alpha and Omega. The collar you wear well; the deference you show him is obviously sincere. He wields his power over you without restraint, clearly enjoys your submission. But yet... I see none of the trembling fear of him that those anti-suffragette preachers speak of as fundamental to keeping an Omega in their proper place. Nor do I see in him a desire to quench your will....”

Mrs. Winthrop shook her head, as if to rouse herself from her thoughts. “But forgive me if I speak too plainly, only the musings of a Beta. With my poor nose for scents I'm always mistaking what is happening between Alphas and Omegas, or so poor Charles is always telling me. Now, let's go downstairs and see if there aren't more of those delicious oysters left...”

When Annabelle returned to him, Tommy returned her chain to his pocket without comment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I regret NOTHING. NOTHING. I know that this chapter is like 90% trash but also like... some character development right? Tommy and Annabelle are starting to feel the feelings with a capital F for each other, which is progress right? Even if they can only admit it to themselves and are totally in denial of what the other one feels lol... Anyway I promise that the next chapter will 1) finally explore the Charlie-Annabelle relationship 2) fucking advance the plot for once 3) not be 100% just Tommy and Annabelle banging lol. But... obviously also there will be indulgent smut too :D. Otherwise how would you even know it was me who wrote it right??


	14. Chapter 14

It was well past midnight when the party began to wind down. They went out and go their coats while the valet brought the car around. “Did you have a nice evening?” He asked her as they slid into the back of the car and he gathered her to his chest. She was conscious of the gesture, the casual and easy way he drew her body against his own made something contract painfully in her chest. She swallowed, feeling the collar, like his hand, against her throat as he let the arm draped across her shoulders slide down to span her waist.

She let herself indulge her desire to be enfolded in his arms, sliding her own arms around his waist under his jacket to cling to him. She settled her chin against his chest, looking up at him. The dimness of the backseat of the car exaggerated his features: the dark lines of his cheekbones and the shadows of his lashes. Beneath the thick, expensive fabric of his shirt and waistcoat, the slow, strong beat of his heart was something she could both feel and hear.

Tommy preferred to drive himself most everywhere. But on more formal occasions he deferred to the fashion of having a driver, though Annabelle had never seen another chauffeur with a razor blade in his cap and a gun at his side, and she wasn't sure that those were not the main reasons Tommy was agreeable to allow himself to be driven in the first place.

“Yes, I did.” She said, stifling a yawn. “Did you?”

“Yes.”

She grinned, leaning her head back so she could see his face. In the dim light coming in from the street lamps, she could just make out the sharp angle of his jaw and cheekbones and the dark fringe of his eyelashes. “You're a bloody liar, Thomas Shelby. All those ' _toffs_ ', all those people, all that champagne... Not your cup of tea.”

“Who taught you the word toff, eh?” He pressed a fond kiss to the top of her head. “Need to warn Ada not to ruin all that fancy schooling, do I?”

They took off their coats in the hall and then mounting the stairs together, still linked by the chain.

Martha had turned down the bed already and Charlie was long asleep.

Tommy took off his jacket and hung it up in the closet. He brought her two him with the lead and turned her to face away from him. She trembled a bit as his fingers found the buttons at the back of her dress and began to undo them. “Don't bother ringing for Martha to help you undress, eh?” He told her.

“Alright.”

When she stepped out of the dress he hung it in the closet where it belonged.

When he released her, Annabelle went to the vanity and turned on the soft lights around it, sitting down in the little chair before it and beginning to take the pins from her hair. Tommy took the lead from his pocket and laid the gold hoop over the pointed ear on the back. He went into the restroom to splash some water on his face.

He went back into the bedroom and poured himself a large whiskey from the tantalus on a small table by the window. He leaned back on the table and watched her as she undid the pins. In the soft light of the vanity the pearl collar looked incredible against her warm skin, lustrous and decadent. The soft, creamy white of her brassiere and bloomers too seemed perfect as well.

Though she didn't look at him, nor could she see him in the mirror, he knew she was aware of her watching him. Her pulse thudded at her throat, visible even above the collar and her pupils in the mirror he could see were wide and black with lust. The smell of her was blooming too, the little ember of desire he'd left in her from the unsatisfied teasing from before was beginning to rekindle.

Soundlessly he moved to stand behind her chair.

The contrast in their sizes was already extreme but now he truly did tower over her, her shoulders coming no farther than his navel. Her trembling fingers stopped moving and placed the pin on the dresser. Her hair was still contained in the elegant configuration but looser, a few extra strands curling about her face. He put one large hand at the base of her neck, just where it met her collarbone, marveling at how large it was compared to her body. It spanned easily across her throat.

In the mirror she watched him reach for her wrists. One large hand encircled each and she shivered. He let the image of them stand in the mirror for a moment, him holding her wrists and their gazes locked in the reflection. Then he brought one wrist up, first drawing the gland across the gland of his own neck. The pheromones transmitted made her head spin and her lips part. “Alpha....” She whispered.

He said nothing to that, only drawing her wrist to his mouth, sucking on the gland until she felt light-headed and weak. “Tommy...”

He did not let that wrist go, stroking one thumb slowly across the now throbbing gland. Instead he brought it's twin to repeat the act: first dragging it across the gland at his own neck and then bathing it with his tongue.

He brought her wrists down again to her sides and then slid his hands from them. She thought at first that he meant to caress the glands of her neck similarly as he reached for them.

Instead he slid his hands to the clasp of her brassier, undoing it and pulling it over her arms, baring her breasts to him in the mirror. She shivered at the expression in his face: a barely contained hunger that made her flesh prickle, as if she were already being consumed. She could feel the heat of him at her back. He was always so warm when he held her, pushed into her, crushed her beneath his body. It was as if his body ran on some kind of fuel that burned hotter than an ordinary man's, even an ordinary Alpha's. She could feel her slick begin to flow under his gaze.

From his trouser pocket he drew a slim, long jewelry case. It looked to be from the same jeweler who had made her collar. _Part of a set of pearls I intend to fuck you in_ , he'd told her. She shivered, wondering what it contained. He put it on the counter of the vanity and opened it.

For a moment she thought it was another, more simple pearl necklace: a single strand of flawless but not overly-large pearls strung together. But it was, she noticed, rather too short for a necklace but too long for a bracelet and both the ends were not two halves of a clasp but rather mirror images—two identical, short, blunt clips, molded in the form of snake's heads.

“Do you know what that is, sweetheart?”

She swallowed. She'd seen them in books before, in paintings in and displays of the jewels of famous Omegas before. Marble statues from the Greek period of naked Omegas bent in supplication and submission often wore these...Once even in her mother's jewelry box (before quickly slamming it shut, cheeks aflame).

“Necklace of Harmonia.” Her voice was rough, rasping.

Whoever had named the form of jewelry had clearly known their mythology. It was meant to bring the Omega favor in her Alpha's eyes, elevating her beauty and youth, while at the same time damning her with the pain of it. The clasps on either end were the snakes head's, representing the misfortune endured in recompense.

He took the pearls out of the box. The precise, unhurried way he moved reminded her of how he drew off his belt before he beat her. With one hand he held the necklace. The other he slid up the slender curve of her waist, his hand pouring heat into her already inflamed body, to her breast. He caressed the swell beneath for a moment before landing on his final destination. He rolled the tender nipple between his fingers for a long moment and then, once it had pebbled to a delicious hardness, he opened the mouth of one snake and fasten around the tip.

She gasped at the sensation. It was not comfortable, that was clear, but the neither was anything else with him. The pain of it was like the anticipation of waiting for him to satisfy her, a growing, building, undeniable ache within her that could at any moment tip into either unbearable suffering or incomparable bliss. Her sex felt heated to the point of pain, like hot honey was pouring out of it and as thought it was aching to be filled. She squirmed in her seat, pressing her thighs together as if that slight pressure would be enough to satisfy.

His hand snaked up her waist to the other nipple, rolling it in his fingers. Whens she did not resist or pull away as he raised the second clasp to her breast he smiled, pressing a kiss to her neck. “Good girl.”

The low rumble of the words went through her like a shivering wave of warmth. Her only answer was a hiss of something between pain and pleasure.

He took a moment to admire her in the mirror. Her breasts were bare, pink nipples trapped in the small gold clips. Between them the string of pearls hung, delicate and decorative but with just enough weight to tug ever so slightly on her sensitive tips. When he'd bought the pearls he'd been imagining watching them bounce as she rode him, as he took her from behind, as she bobbed on him with her mouth. Hell, he was hard enough at the sight of her, he wasn't sure that he wouldn't be able to manage all three.

He took the leash from where it lay on the back of the chair and wound the chain of it around his hand a few times such that he could control her with the smallest of movements. The garter and stockings were a cream color, as if she'd known he would give her pearls that night, and the heels were a rosy pink that made the flush of her nipples and cheeks seem even more pronounced. Her hair was still up but a few strands had slipped out, framing that angelic face in a dark halo of curls.

“Stand up and put your hands on the vanity.”

He pulled her by the collar to her feet and guided her until she bent forward. In the mirror he could see her eyes blown wide with lust as she watched him. With one shoe he eased her legs apart, tilting her ass up with the hand that was not tangled in her lead.

She presented perfectly, pert little ass tilting up to allow him to take her. He opened his trousers and ran his cock, already hard, along her slit, making her shiver against it. He thrust into her with a groan. She'd have bruises by the time he was done with her, on her thighs from where he'd pushed her against the vanity as well as the gland at her neck he re-opened with little regard for the pathetic little whimpering plea she made when he set his teeth to it.

The rattling of the vanity was like music to his ears.

With each thrust the pearls swung between her breasts, pulling gently and making her wince a bit. The sensation of him in her was normally enough to be overwhelming but the new pain of the biting clasps at her nipples made her gasp. But he neither slowed nor reduced the force of his thrusts. Quite the contrary, he used to collar and the lead he held to pull her back against him with a brutal force, making her sink back onto the firm rod that was spearing open her flesh.

This was where he wanted her: safe beneath him, tied to him with flesh and pearls and the weight of the collar only he could unlock around her neck. The only thing that made the idea of letting her out into the dangerous world tolerable was how she took his bites, his knot, his will. The only thing that made him feel sane, since he'd had the first Black Cat Dream. In her arms those dreams had abated, the visions of Grace, perverted by opium, had ceased. Even the smell and pounding of the tunnels had let go their hold of him, for the first time since the true Grace had let him into her embrace.

“God but you take me well, girl.”

The only answer she gave was a squeaking, mewling sound of pleasure.

With one hand he tilted her hips, raising her to an even higher angle. His hands slid along her hips hips to the plump flesh of her ass. He gripped the mounds and parted them, watching his cock slide home between her thighs. Parted and at that angle, she was most vulnerable, each slow thrust he made into her was a torment as much as it was paradise.

“I've had your cunt girl, your virginity. Knotted your fucking mouth and collared you. I own you now, you know that, eh?”

She said nothing, only arched against him.

“Say it, girl.”

“You own me.”

When he felt they were close he bent and opened the gland at her neck against, tearing it open as he filled her with his spend and she spasmed against him in her own ecstasy. When they were both coherent he bent her head to the other side.

“I'll open your neck here, just so'as you know I can.”

She did not protest more than a little whimper as he ripped open the thin, aching and bruised skin on the other side. His cock was still in her, knot half hard, and he could feel her clench against him as he tore open the raw flesh. She hadn't had a moment to heal since he'd first bit her there but he showed no mercy.

But he wanted more.

He slid from her but didn't bother to tuck himself away. He took her by the collar and dragged her, stumbling slightly on legs still wobbly from the rough fucking, to the bed. She climbed onto the bed on her knees when they reached the edge and he pulled her to the center. He let to the lead drop and his hands went to his own tie. He undid the black fabric and caught her wrists roughly between his hands. It was the work of a moment to lash her hands together with the tie and then throw it over the the slats in the top of the bed. He pulled her up onto her knees so she was essentially dangling from her wrists.

He left her suspended there and went back to finish his whiskey. He took his time taking off his cuff-links and waistcoat, stripping off his shirt and finally trousers and pants. He went to the closet and took out the cane that he'd used on her in the sitting room. He went back to the bed and knelt beside her, naked. He was aroused again and though she kept her eyes carefully forward he could tell that her attention was focused on the rigid cock bobbing between his legs and the slender length of wood he held in his hands.

He let his fingers play over the pearls dangling between her breasts, tugging a big on them and making her squirm and gasp and her breasts bounce temptingly. “Can you guess what comes next, eh, sweetheart?”

“Yes, Tommy.”

The crack of the cane and her sobbing groan of an answer made his cock twitch. She jerked and then groaned again as the necklace of Harmonia pulled at her delicate nipples. The stripe the cane left was a blooming red line across the plump, delicious swell of her ass.

_Crack._

_Crack._

_Crack._

_Crack._

By the time he was finished she was limp, dangling by her wrists and all the fight had gone out of her. Her ass and thighs were stripped with bright red lines from the cane.

He laid back against the abundance of pillows at the head of the bed, arms stretched out to either side like a conquering barbarian and took in the sight of her. Her head slumped forward, lips parted slightly and tears still streaming down her face. Between her breasts the pearls lay, contrasting beautifully with her flushed skin. Her breasts were heaving with the panting gasps of air she was taking and the collar looked as though it were a choking hand at her throat, making her gasps all the more desperate. Between the thighs, still clad in their delicate white stockings and garter belt, her sex was wet, a mixture of her slick and the cum he'd left in her drooling down onto the bedspread. The smell of her was incredible.

His own cock was rigid, jutting up proudly between his legs.

“Come here then girl.”

She shuffled forward on her knees, sliding the tie over the slat of wood with some difficulty until she managed to straddle his hips. He ran his hands up her side, letting his rough fingers drink in the smooth skin, the gentle curve of her waist and the delicate ribs beneath. He brushed his thumbs over the tender tips in their clamps, making her wince.

He let one eyebrow raise slightly. “Should I get the cane again, eh, Annabelle? Or are you going to try to please me in another way?”

She swallowed. “No, Tommy.”

It wasn't easy for her to mount him without the use of her hands but he offered her no help, preferring to watch the struggle. Finally she managed to sink down onto him however and slowly, she began to ride him. She knew better than to try to hurry what was to be a long, arduous process for herself. She took him in slow, steady strides.

“All the way down girl.” He admonished her with a slap on the ass when she came only halfway onto him for the first few strokes. From this angle he knew that taking all of him was difficult for her and would be particularly so with her ass and thighs so raw but she only nodded and redoubled her efforts.

He plucked gently at the Necklace between her breasts, making her wince, but she only worked harder to please him.

“That's my girl.” He said fondly. “Such a good, pleasing thing you are, eh? Suck my cock and take my collar, fuck me just the way I like after I've beaten you.”

“Yes, Tommy, yes...” She moaned.

He dragged the process out as long as he could, until her thighs were trembling and she was flushed and panting, her brow moist with sweat. But finally he could resist no longer. He took her by the hips and began to fuck her in earnest.

When they had both cum and his knot was swollen within her, he took a moment to admire the sight of her, bound and dangling on his cock. Finally though he relented and undid her hands from where they were bound. She brought them down to steady herself, putting them in the middle of his chest and looking down at him with a laughably shy, demure expression. It was always the same with her. When he fucked her she couldn't help but let her Omega instincts take over but there was always this moment afterward, when the Viscountess remembered what she had let him do to her, what she had begged him to do to her.

He slid his fingers to the collar, fingering the pearls there, then down to those that hung between her breasts.

“Next time I think you'll wear these out as well. With the collar on it will just look like the edge of a longer pearl necklace between your breasts. Only I will know what it really is, eh?” He mused.

She shivered. “Yes, Tommy.”

“Maybe I'll find you in the lavatory and lock the door behind us. Get you on your knees and have you suck me off with your gown pulled down so I can play with this as you do it.”

“Yes, Tommy.”

He took her once more before he took the necklace off and they went to sleep, this time on her hands and knees with her hands bound behind her back and her face in a pillow.

Whens he slept she dreamed of warm sunlight touching cold marble, of a garden coming to life in the dawn and woke in an empty bed, her hand reaching for where her husband had slept beside her.

Tommy was not the only one who was trying to delineate the new boundaries of their relationship. In the first weeks of living in the London house, she'd felt an interloper, unsure of her place. But, slowly, she began to insert herself, little-by-little, into the running of the household. The changes that she made were, by objective measure, small and even a little strange but to Tommy they were strangely noticeable. The particularly good quinces with dinner, the new way the maids began to lay out his ties in his closet, the neat and stylish little _C. S._ that appeared suddenly on the lapels all of Charlie's school uniforms—they all felt like soft, caressing fingers running soothingly over his neck, his collar, a whisper of something low and sweet in his ear.

It was not as if the house had been run badly before. He had hired the best staff available and made available to them more then generous terms and available funds. But there are some comforts that only people who were born to the leisure class have the time to imagine. It felt as though she had rounded the edges of a piece of furniture, taking off any point such that now the days went by with a new and pleasing ease.

And she was surprisingly good with Charlie.

He wasn't sure how he had expected her to be with his son. Charlie did not remember his own mother but he was at an age where he might have taken the remarriage of his father badly. And it was true that, at least at first, there was a certain measure of coolness in his interactions with her.

“You can call me Annabelle, or Annie if you like Charlie.” She told him one morning at breakfast.

“Yes, Miss Grant.” He had replied, not in defiance but because he could not imagine calling her anything else.

He might have thought that Annabelle herself might have reservations, had she been a different sort of woman or they in a different sort of arrangement. It wasn't necessarily obvious that a second Omega would take to the progeny of the prior attachment. But she was not the kind of woman to do such calculations. Besides, he reminded himself, she had no need to worry about dividing the esteem or affection between Charlie and the children she would give him herself.

And Charlie... really he hadn't stood a chance. He hadn't known any adults like her before. Tommy had thought before that he was indulgent with his son. He had gone out of his way to make sure that Charlie never lacked for anything, at least. But he would never be as good at spoiling a child as a Viscountess. He simply hadn't had the practice she had.

“Let me fetch Charlie from school, shall I?” She asked one afternoon when his nanny Miss Gable was out of town to visit her ill mother.

“If you like.” He had agreed.

An hour later he'd been stepping out of the house to go look for them, certain something had happened to them despite the Blinder he'd sent with them, when he'd seen them coming up the street together. Both were holding ice cream cones, Charlie had found a balloon somewhere, and then Blinder trailing behind them was carrying a box of sweets so big it would have toppled Annabelle over.

“Oh look Charlie, it's your daddy!” She'd exclaimed, raising an arm to wave at him.

When they had reached him she had given him a kiss that tasted like the ice cream with cold, sweet lips. “Where have the two of you been, then, eh?”

“There was a market on the way. We were waylaid.”

He raised an eyebrow at the box of candies. “So I see.”

“Can Annabelle come get me from school ever day?” Charlie asked, taking a lick of his ice cream cone.

“No, that's Miss Gable's job.”

“But Miss Gable never stops for the markets or ice cream.” Charlie protested.

“That is Miss Gable's other job.” His father said, ruffling his hair fondly. “To say no to things, so we don't have to.”

Annabelle gave him a small smile. “Are you going out again, Tommy? Charlie and I were hoping to use the car to go to the pictures just now. Could we trouble you to take us?”

Charlie grinned up at him, pleadingly.

“No trouble at all, eh.”

She taught him to play a simple little duet with her on the piano, to recite some romantic poetry and told him bloody stories about her most famous ancestors. She and her doting friends took Charlie with them to lunch, to the British Museum and the Tower of London, on picnics and shopping days in the arcades. And quite soon the two of them were as thick as thieves and something like great friends.

As for herself, Annabelle was careful never to present herself as a _mother_ to Charles Shelby, but instead like a rather doting aunt. Given that she knew his father did not plan to Claim her (did not plan to keep her) and he did not, it felt... unsporting to pretend she could fill that roll for him. She did not want him to feel as if she wasn't interested in him though. She wasn't sure a child that age was creative enough to understand the complex motivations of adults. But he was certainly old enough to understand why a new wife and Omega might take an ill view toward the offspring of a prior attachment.

But for all her best intentions, it was hard to hold herself back. From licking her thumb to wipe a bit of gravy from his cheek, from telling him to watch more carefully for cars and hold her hand when they crossed, from asking about if he'd done his school work or not. It wasn't that he reminded her so strongly of Tommy. He had the fair completion of his mother and a sweet smile that she knew did not come from the paternal lineage either. But there was just enough of Tommy in him though, to make her heart turn over when she looked at him: long lashes, blue eyes and a stubborn chin.

Would Tommy let Charlie visit her, once they were divorced? If they were known to have parted amicably, surely it wouldn't stir up too much gossip, would it? Besides, Tommy was hardly a man who worried overmuch about convention anyway. Surely he wouldn't object to the occasional romp out to the movies with her, or a present or too at Christmas or his birthday.

She'd never had anyone to dote on like this before, could she really be blamed for becoming attached to him? And Charlie was such a charming little boy, anyway. Fortuitously he was exactly the right age to be taken about with a group of young women who were on the cusp of motherhood: old enough that he could sit through lunch or tea without being too bothered but young enough that he still found it exciting to be included at a table of adults.

“Charlie,” she asked one Saturday morning at the breakfast table. “Have you ever seen a polar bear?”

“No.” He said, looking up from his toast.

She folded down the newspaper she had been reading (a bad habit she had picked up from Tommy) and cocked an eyebrow. “Should you like to?”

“Yes, of course.”

She had been reading about a new exhibit at the London Zoo that had just opened up featuring creatures from the arctic tundra. She folded the paper over to show him the photo there of the penguin enclosure. “Shall I go ask your daddy if we can go to the zoo today, then?”

He nodded eagerly. “Yes, please, Annie.”

She'd gone upstairs to find Tommy dressing to leave for the Houses of Parliament. “You're going in, on a Saturday?”

“Just some last minute meetings. The session ends this week and then everyone will retire to the countryside. So they're eager to meet before they do.”

“Oh, alright then. Is it alright with you if I take Charlie to the zoo today?”

“The zoo?”

“To see the animals.”

“I know what a zoo is.”

“There's a new exhibit with polar bears and penguins and the like.”

He took out his money clip and took two ten pound notes off the top, holding them out to her. She giggled. “I don't need money, Tommy. Besides, that's far to much for zoo entrance and some ice creams.”

“Humor me.” When she didn't take the notes, he put them on her vanity, just beside where she leaned against it and went back to arranging his waistcoat and pocket watch. “And take Mick with you, eh?”

She frowned. “Tommy, we're going to the bloody zoo. It's hardly likely we'll need Mick.”

He didn't look up. “Humor me.”

“Really, Tommy, I don't think that...”

Her voice trailed off as he glanced up finally, meeting her eyes. The look on his face wasn't anger, wasn't even frustration. In fact, it was something she'd never seen there before and couldn't interpret. Like all of his expressions it was so subtle that to take a picture of him you would say it wasn't there at all. But the slight tightening of the jaw, the shift in his scent, and the coolness that had crept into those astonishing eyes was there, she was sure she did not imagine it, even if she did not yet know what it meant.

He stepped forward and cupped her cheek with one hand.

“Do you know what I see, when I look at you?” He asked.

“No, what do you mean?” Her voice was suddenly dry, hoarse.

“I see what any other man sees: a beautiful girl who wears a diamond bracelet to the breakfast table.” He touched the item in question, the one she'd neglected to take off the night before. “I see soft lips, blue eyes,” he slid his hands over her shoulders, letting his thumbs slide over her breasts beneath the thin chemise and causing them to harden, “...and even if I didn't know how sweet your cunt tastes, I could imagine it.” He slid his hands into the thick mass of her hair and tilted her head back, his grip just firm enough to hurt a bit.

She swallowed, unable to speak. His eyes were so cold as he said the words, like chips of ice that burned into hers. As he spoke he stepped forward, moving her back until her hips connected with the vanity behind her. She gasped as he lifted her easily by the hips onto the smooth surface covered by a bit of fine lace. The little jeweled box on top tumbled to the floor.

“In short, I see something precious, something that belongs to me, that another man would take if given the chance.”

One large hand pushed her knees wide and he stepped between them, the other he put against the mirror behind her, trapping her between it and the armoire on the other side. The hand on her knee slid up her thigh and easily under her knickers to the warm, wet folds beneath. He ran the broad side of his thumb between the inner folds, flicking across the little bud at the top and making her gasp.

“You think I'm the only man in the world who would like to get his hands on this, eh?” His voice was a rasp against her throat as he slid his teeth and lips along the column of her throat.

He took the hand from where it was leaning against the mirror and pulled wide the neck of her banyan and sliding the slender silk twine of a strap that held up her chemise beneath. He bent and took one nipple into her mouth, rolling it with his tongue against his teeth. He took his hand from her slit briefly to bear her other breast, cupping it briefly before going back to teasing her with his hand.

“Answer me, girl.” He snarled. “Do you think I'm the only man in the world who wants to fuck you?”

“No, Tommy.”

“And are you, or are you not, my fucking property.”

“I am, Tommy.”

With both hands he shifted her hips forward so she was just barely on the edge of the vanity, rolling her hips forward to spread her open for him. He opened his trouser zip and took himself out. He buried himself to the hilt with a single thrust, making her gasp and arch against him. God but the feeling of her never got old. She was so tight and wet and inviting, like heaven. He plunged into her, over and over again. His hands at her hips kept her open for him, peeled open like a peach.

“Then, sweetheart, don't fucking argue with me, eh?” He trailed his lips along her glands, the bruises that he never let quite heal. “When I tell you how to protect what's mine.”

Her head fell back and she was cumming, clenching around him and sobbing. He watched her ecstasy as his own was peaking. He was coherent enough to enjoy feeling of spilling himself into her warmth before the blackness claimed him.

When they were both coherent he withdrew and straightened himself up in the vanity mirror. She watched him as he moved briskly and soon enough it was as if the interlude had never occurred, save for her, still spread open on the vanity.

Next to her lay the two twenty-pound notes. She ran her fingers over them with a small smile on her lips, then lifted them. “I will take these now... I think.” She told him.

He regarded her for a moment, as if to determine the sincerity with which she spoke, and to gauge what she meant by the joke. Another woman might have said the words as an accusation having just been given some money and a fuck. But her smile seemed genuine, if a little mocking.

“I thought we agreed you weren't a concubine. Nor a whore.”

She trailed an inviting finger between her breasts, drawing his attention back to them. “Well, I was but a little girl back then, wasn't I? I didn't know it would be so lucrative... nor so pleasurable, to be your whore.”

His hands were back at her thighs, sliding up them to her waist, then up. He slid his hands over her breasts and then, gently, slid the straps of her chemise back over, covering them. He brushed a kiss across her mouth that was the slow, measured and precise manner that she thought, for him, added up to as close to tenderness as she could expect from this man.

He pulled back and gave her a wink. “Ah, sweetheart, you'd be worth more than a couple of banknotes.” He slid his fingers through her cunt, through the mix of their spilled seed and brought it to her mouth. She dutifully sucked his fingers. “Particularly for what you let me do to you, eh?”

“And what is it, that I do for you, Mr. Shelby?”

“Whatever I want, eh?”

“Yes, Tommy.”

He went to the door. “Have fun at the zoo, sweetheart.”

They did see the polar bear in the end. But it was the elephants that Charlie liked best because you could buy some kernels of grain from a nearby stand and offer them up with an open palm. Annabelle screamed a little bit when the snuffling trunk touched her hand but she was soon giggle as much as Charlie and they spent nearly a pound buying more since there was a baby that took a liking to them.

All in all, the day was a right success, she thought, looking at Charlie, who was chattering away in the seat next to her.

_I could get used to this_.

She pushed back that thought, and the painful clench of emotions that followed it. There was no use thinking about things she couldn't have after all. She didn't know quite how much time she would have with Tommy, maybe a year or more. And once Mosley was out of the picture, it would not be good to wait to long to divorce him. A short marriage would fade sooner from peoples minds and she would need time to let his scent fade, to convince people that he hadn't, in fact, Claimed her.

When had she started wanting that, anyway? That insidious creeping desire to have him take her fully and finally and irrevocably had started just in the moments of Heat, of sex, when he took her with such mastery. But now, she couldn't deny that she wanted it just to look at him, just to think of him. When had the change come? When had she started to _love_ him? She couldn't point out the exact moment. It had been when she'd knelt down at the wedding and he'd bound only one hand, or later when he'd waited for her to grasp his palm in blood, or the night that the newspaper article had come out, the collar... just that morning when he'd called her _precious_ , _his property_. Or maybe it had been all of those moments together.

That night that they'd agreed to embark on the plan together to bring down Mosley she had warned him not to take things between them too far, not to take her Mating Gland. Even she could see the irony in that, bitter though it was. It was her head that fell forward sometimes into Presentation, after all, and he who held them back. He was the one who offered restraint, and she the one who had begged to be restrained.

_I love you, Tommy_. She could imagine herself saying the words. They had come to her lips often enough after all, just that morning in fact when he'd slid himself home inside of her. But she couldn't imagine his response. The thought of how he might still when she said it, that unreadable mask slipping into place as the cold and calculating part of him took command, was anathema to her. Calm, rational words, an explanation in that preciseness that she misinterpreted as tenderness... that would undo her. Even the thought of it made her stomach clench painfully and her gorge rise in her throat....

The car had just pulled up in front of the house and Annabelle shook herself from her thoughts. She was arranging her purse, Charlie's coat and the rather enormous stuffed elephant they had bought when she heard a strange noise. She thought perhaps the car had run over something in the road, a glass bottle or something else that could make the cracking _pop_ that she heard. She glanced up, intending to ask Mick what the noise was, only to find he had slumped forward, his chest a mass of blood spilling onto the clean steering wheel.

The sound of gunfire was not anything like she had expected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all I am SO sorry about the delay in getting this chapter up! Work has been insane. And I wanted it to be perfect for you. So it's mostly hot, hot, hot trash as usual BUT now we're getting into the plotty plot stuff too! Literally we're starting the next chapter with a bang lol! And for everyone looking for Annabelle-Charlie time, I hope I didn't disappoint! Obviously it's just a start but I'm dying to know what you guys think of their budding relationship! And the smutty stuff too obviously! Please, please, please, please, please leave me a comment to let me know what you think! Comments are definitely food for my writing :D :D :D :D


	15. Chapter 15

For what seemed an eternity she only looked at the man's chest, disbelieving, expecting to wake up at any moment, expecting to blink and have imagined it. A soft _wuff_ beside her and the leather seat exploded in a rain of feathers. Charlie, not tall enough to see into the front seat, began to laugh. “Annie! Look! It's...”

That spurred her into action. She turned and grabbed the boy by the coat she had just helped him into, pulling him onto the floor of the car. She came down over top of him, careful not to knock the wind out of him but equally sure to cover as much of his little body as she could with her own. “Charlie, lie still.” She whispered to him. “Lie still, my good boy.”

“Annie, what is going on?”

“We're just going to lie here my boy, alright, and wait for your daddy to come find us.” Some of the tension in her body must have told him that now was not a time to argue for he lay still beneath her and did not struggle or argue, despite what must have been an uncomfortable position, trapped between her and the floor.

Another burst of gunfire and she heard a bullet rip through the door of the car behind them. She fought not to scream but no burst of pain came, no cry or tensing of the form beneath her.

For herself she bent her head until the edges of her cloche hat obscured from view all in the world except the soft blond hair of the boy beneath her. His breath still smelled of ice cream and she began to count his inhalations, a reminder that both of them were still alive. She tried to drown out the noise of the gunfire in her own mind, focusing on Charlie and nothing else.

She had reached his thirty fifth breath so, though it felt an eternity, she knew it must have been a minute or two, before the car door facing toward the house opened. She looked up, heart pounding in her throat. Tommy leaned, crouched, against the car door with what appeared to her to be some kind of modified machine gun braced against one armpit and an expression that took her breath away. He looked furious and feral, like some kind of avenging angel. This was the raw determination that defined him: a man with a will to control every aspect of himself and the world around him. Here was the soldier who had lived through France, the Alpha who had mastered himself when he had found her that first night, the business man and MP who kept a gun under his fine jacket always.

Here was her husband.

He slung the gun over his shoulder and reached in, pulling her out by one arm wordlessly, the other hand going to the back of her head to keep her crouched down where the metal of the car would protect her.

She turned, crouching, and gestured for Charlie to crawl out after her. “Head down, Charlie,” she whispered, “come here, good lad.”

It was easier for him to scramble out by himself, little as he was, and into her grasp. She settled him with his legs around her waist and head against her shoulder, one arm going around his waist, the other to the back of his head, as she might hold a child who was sick or crying.

Tommy, one hand still protectively at the back of her head, keeping it bent forward, and with his body decidedly between her and the street, half pushed her up the steps to the house and through the open door. His grip was hard enough to bruise, all steel and menace and as feral as his expression.

In the foyer he pushed her back against the coat racks, out of the line of sight of the door and ran a hand over her arms and torso, over Charlie's frightened face. “Are you alright? Are both of you unhurt?”

“Yes,” she breathed. “Yes, we're both fine, I think.”

“Daddy...” Charlie began but she shushed him quickly, running a hand over his head.

“Up the stairs and lock the door. Don't open it until I ask you to.”

She obeyed without question, letting him guide her to the base of the stairs and start her up with a push. She was aware that she was gasping from the effort of running with Charlie in her arms when she reached the top of the stairs but she couldn't feel the usual burning of lungs and legs that would accompany it. Her body felt numb, as if she'd been plunged into some icy lakes for the minutes since the gunfire had started.

Her fingers trembled as she fetched out the key from a drawer and locked the bedroom door behind her. As a child she had been told that the bathtub was the safest place to be in a tornado or an earthquake and for some reasons he thought of that as she glanced around, wondering where they would be safest. A second locked door between her and the street felt reassuring as well and there were no windows in the bathroom either.

She closed and locked the door and then quickly crossed to the tub, stepping in and laying down. Charlie, limp in her arms, let her lay him across her chest, his little legs in the fold of one coat and her arm still around his chest.

Charlie looked up at her with wide eyes. His fingers clung to her coat. “Are we safe in here, Annie?”

“Yes, of course we are. We're just going to wait here until your daddy comes and lets us know it's alright to come out.” She said, trying for a smile.

She was panting a little bit from the run, and wondering if he could feel how fast her heart was beating through her coat and dress.

“What's happening?”

“I'm not sure.” She said, honestly.

“Did some men come to kill my dad?”

“I'm not sure.”

She lay, looking up at the ceiling and stroking his head, listening for any sound in the house. There were none of the usual sounds of footsteps on the hallway as maid's moved about, the creak of the stairs and the bustle of the kitchen getting ready for dinner. But neither were there more sounds of shooting from the street or shouting of men in a confrontation. If that moment went on for minutes or hours, she couldn't say. She could feel her heart in her chest, the softness of Charlie's curls, the cool ceramic underneath her coat...

Then, finally, she heard the familiar creak of the stairs and wondered how she knew it was Tommy only by that. The bedroom door pushed open and he called out, “Annabelle?”

When he didn't see her in the bedroom he didn't wait for her to answer him. He went to the bathroom door and kicked it open with a single, determined move. The woman and the boy in the tub blinked out at him, eyes wide. He unslung the modified machine gun over his shoulder and laid it down on the bedroom floor, out of sight (as if this would make it disappear entirely), before stepping over the threshold into the bathroom.

Charlie was out of the tub before she could blink, scrambling to the door and throwing himself into Tommy's arms. “Papa! Papa, did some men come to try to hurt you?”

Tommy smiled at him fondly, picking the little boy up to seat him on his hip so they were eye-to-eye. “Just a misunderstanding, my boy, never you worry. We're going to go get away for a bit, while the neighborhood settles down. Now go run along to your room. I'll send Martha to help you pack, we're going on a trip, aren't we?”

“Where are we going?”

Tommy let him slide down to the floor. “I've got to talk to Annabelle for a bit now, eh? Just go get your things packed.”

She was still standing in the bathtub, feeling ridiculous as he came in and leaned against the sink. His hand didn't shake as he took out the packet and lighter from his waistcoat and lit a cigarette. He'd gotten rid of the machine gun but with his jacket off the pistol at his side was visible and she couldn't help but stare at it. It had frightened her before, of course, but today it seemed particularly ominous now that she could imagine the sound it could make and the damage it could cause. The ruin of the Mick's chest was fresh in her mind.

He waited for her to speak first. His expression was as unreadable as ever but she felt as though she were getting accustomed to interpreting the subtle signs he did display. The smell of him was all gunpowder and adrenaline, and she could tell he longed to be in action—moving toward a total and brutal response to the attack. But he was making himself wait for her. Wait for her to decide what she was going to do next.

Tommy wasn't sure what he thought Annabelle's reaction would be. By all rights, she should fall apart. He'd once asked her if she'd ever been hit but he didn't have to ask to know she'd never been shot at. And he'd seen enough Alphas loose their heads the first time they saw battle. A sobbing mess would at least be easy to carry to the car. It might terrify Charlie to see her like that but at least she would be pliable. What he feared most was anger. If she demanded to be returned to her mother's house he didn't have time to explain that wasn't an option anymore, that involving her mother and brother would only endanger them, maybe get them killed.

He wasn't sure why the thought of commanding her in that way gave him an unsettled, queasy feeling in his stomach. He'd thought nothing for her comfort or wishes that morning when she'd sucked his cock for an hour or more until her lips were puffy and her throat was raw as he smoked and read the newspaper. Aside from the occasional fond caress of her hair (a gesture that usually ended with him curling his fingers around her skull and thrusting into her throat, indicating that he wanted her to focus on taking him deeper), he'd barely paid her any attention at all. But this was different.

If he was going to have to bite her glands and use the command voice to keep her docile, he was going to feel like a right fucking bastard and he knew it.

“Where are we going?” She asked.

“Birmingham.”

“When?”

“As soon as your bags are packed.”

She nodded. “Alright.”

He stepped forward and offered her a hand to step over the high wall of the tub. “Come on, then, out you come.” Her fingers were trembling as she took his hand. He nodded to her shaking hand. “That'll get worse, before it gets better. But it will be gone by tomorrow at the latest. I'll get you some whiskey to take the edge off in the meantime.”

Her tears began to well and she stumbled forward, clutching at the lapels of his vest and burying her face in his collar to hide the sobbing. He put an arm around her waist and pulled her against him, letting her sob. He found he didn't like her tears, when he wasn't in control of them. Usually he could stop her crying with a few soft strokes over beaten flesh, a few kind words and sweet kisses. He didn't like the thought of another man making her cry, that was his right and his alone.

But he didn't try to stop her either.

When she'd worn herself out he pressed a kiss to the crown of her head and went to fetch her a glass of whiskey while she splashed water on her face. He poured her a rather substantial amount and an even stiffer glass for himself. He leaned against the dresser and waited for her to come back out of the bathroom.

“Drink all that down.” He told her. She took it with hands, already shaking worse but she tilted the glass back and drank it down, wincing and shuddering. He poured her another.

She took it but didn't drink it down, too focused on wiping away the tears with the backs of her hands. He took the folded pocket square from his vest and held it out to her. She took it and pressed it to her cheeks. “I'm sorry, Tommy.” She said, her voice hitching a bit. “You must think I'm being awfully silly.”

“No, I don't. Normal, to be rattled the first time you see gunfire.” He took the handkerchief from her hands and took her head in his hands, stroking one broad thumb across her cheek as yet another tear welled. “You were a brave girl today, eh? You didn't panic, you got Charlie and yourself to safety, just like I told you. Didn't loose your head, did you?”

She nodded, taking a shuddering breath and another sip of whiskey. “Who were those people?”

“I'll explain anything you want to know about, but only once you're safe.”

“We'll be safe in Birmingham?” She asked.

“Yes.”

She stood, nodding. “I'll pack a valise for each of us, then.”

He stripped off his shirt and put on a fresh one, then re-donned his jacket. Martha came in to help Annabelle to pack quickly.

The drive to Birmingham passed mostly in silence. They arrived far after dark and Charlie was long asleep in the backseat. He fetched the warm little body out of the back. Charlie stirred a little bit as he was shifted onto Tommy's shoulder but didn't wake up. He opened Annabelle's door for her and helped her out. He didn't let go of her hand as he mounted the steps and the door opened for him.

“Get the trunks out of the back, take them upstairs.” He told the Blinder who had opened the door.

Already in the living room he could see Arthur and Micheal seated with a dozen other men, all in the same sharp black suits and folded caps in hands. Annabelle, clearly not expecting so many people, hung back over his shoulder. He could smell the sudden spike of nervous energy and her fingers held his a bit harder. She was afraid of these men, his men. She'd learn soon enough not to be though.

“Arthur, Micheal, come meet my wife, Annabelle Shelby.”

The two men rose and came forward. Tommy clapped the larger one on the shoulder as he shook Annabelle's hand. “This is Arthur, my brother, and Micheal, my nephew.”

“A pleasure to meet you both.”

Arthur looked her up and down. “She's a beauty, in't she Tom, eh? Real beauty.”

Micheal sighed, “Jesus Arthur, you're going to put the poor girl off the whole city before she's even seen it in the daylight.”

Tommy looked into the living room. “Take Charlie upstairs eh, Annabelle.”

He shifted the boy from his hip onto hers.

The sound of the conversation striking up again followed her up the stairs. She opened doors until she found the bedroom that her cases had been put in. With some difficulty she managed to undress him out of his clothes and put him in his pajamas without waking him. More a testament to how deeply the little boy slept, rather than her skill at it. She arranged him under the covers and spent a moment just looking down at him, stroking the limp hair over his brow.

On the drive to Birmingham she had clung to Charlie with one hand, the seat of the Bentley with the other, with her eyes wide open and unseeing. She shivered. The room was cold and though there was wood in the fireplace and a taper beside it, she'd never lit a fire herself. She wondered if she knew how to do it.

She was shaken from her reverie by the sound of footsteps on the stairs, startled into full alertness before she reminded herself that she was being ridiculous. Tommy had said they were safe in Birmingham, and there were a dozen men downstairs, all armed to the teeth.

The door opened, and Tommy came in accompanied by an nervous-looking woman in her fifties who was carrying a plain but neat little tea tray. Annabelle stood, surprised. The woman bobbed a little curtsy. “Annabelle, this is Mrs. Afton. She's one of our neighbors. Right there on the table is fine, Mrs. Afton, with my thanks.”

The woman put the tray down on the little table by a window and made another motion of nervous deference to Annabelle. “Welcome to Small Heath, Mrs. Shelby. Very pleased to make your acquaintance, my lady.”

“Very kind of you, to send the tray over.” Annabelle said, “I don't know how to thank you.”

“No thanks needed, Mrs. Shelby. If you need help with anything at all settling into Birmingham, please let me know.”

Tommy had to fight not to smile. With her pretensions to middle class respectability, Mrs. Afton had always treated him with as much coolness as she felt she could dare. Clearly the posh manners and title of his new wife had warmed her considerably to the idea of him. The fifty-pound note he'd sent with his request that she bring over a tray, he did not doubt had also contributed to her unusually generous mood. She hadn't so much as inquired when they would be returning the tray.

When she had left Tommy went to the bedside table and fetched out a bottle of whiskey and two glasses. He poured two generous helpings and put them next to the tea tray. “Sit.” He told her, gesturing to the table.

She glanced downward, to where the voices from the living room could still be heard. “Arthur and Micheal have both done so much Tokyo they'll be up until dawn in any case. That can wait.”

She came to sit at the seat across from him as he poured her a cup of tea from the little china pot. He took the cover off the plate of toast and began to butter a slice. She watched as he put it on a plate and bent her his head to indicate she should take it.

“No cold chicken or marmalade?” She said, smiling softly.

“No.” He agreed. “I'll have some marmalade sent from Arrow House tomorrow though, if you like.”

“Don't trouble yourself.”

“No trouble. Frances will be flattered you remember it.”

_The last time you fed me like this I thought it was only a substitute for fucking me_ , she wanted to say, _I didn't expect it now that you really can fuck me_. But she knew it would only be torment for her. Aching, cold, lonely and scared as she was it wouldn't help to remind her that soon enough he would go back downstairs and leave her alone with her thoughts in this unfamiliar house.

So she took the toast, tea and whiskey, and the cigarette when she said she'd finally had enough and he lit one for each of them.

“How much do you want to know?”

“As much as you'll tell me.”

“The first thing to explain to you is that there has always been a family of gypsies that control the waterways of England. In my lifetime it has always been the Lee family but before that it was the Coopers and the Lovells. Now there is a new family, the Boswells, who are trying to take control of it.”

She frowned, not understanding the connection, but didn't interrupt.

“My family and the family business, the Shelby Company Limited, has an agreement with the Lees that allows us to use the waterways to move products along them. My nephew Micheal has so far been attempting to buy his way out of the war between the two families, and up until today he's been successful.” He took a sip of his own whiskey. “But money is not how these conflicts are resolved. It's a blood dispute now, between us and the Boswells.”

She shivered.

“What does that mean?”

“Practically? That I'll have to go to Glasgow in a while.”

“For how long?”   
“That will depend on what we find when we get there. But I won't leave until the conflict is winding down and we're sure we've won.”

“And where will I be? While you're in Glasgow?”

“You'll be safe in Birmingham. As long as you stay within the territory that I tell you every man you pass in the street will protect you with violence, if the occasion arises.”

She looked up. “What will you do in Glasgow? And why Scotland?”

“Micheal has had his chance to resolve this in his way. I'll have mine now.”

“I thought... that is Polly said that you kept out of the business side of things now, to focus on politics.”

“One of Mosley's conditions on making me so prominent in the BUF.”

“And now?”

“The Boswells get quite a bit of their weaponry from the Scottish gang that abducted you, the men who do the less savory work Mosley needs done in the north of the country. Using this as an excuse to wipe out the Billy Boys isn't something that he will be able to argue with me about.”

She considered. “You've been waiting for this to happen.”

“I didn't think they would target you, sweetheart, or Charlie for that matter.”

“But you have been waiting for provocation.”

“Yes.”

She pressed her lips together. “So what happens when you go after Mosley's base in the north?”

“If we move quickly, it will mean that he wont be able to hold rallies there for at least a few months. Without his protection, there will be too much violence from other groups. And I've spoken to your brother about arranging... alternative protection for Mosley, once the Billy Boys are gone.”

“Protection in name only.”

“Yes.”

_Are you going to have him killed_? The question rose to her lips but she held it back, finding that she felt she already knew the answer.

“And the men who came to the house today?”

His smile held no humor. “Ah, they shot at you and Charles. For that I'll kill them myself, sweetheart.”

She couldn't look at him when he said it. The thought that he would kill on her behalf made a confusing welter of emotions rise in her chest: mixed fear and desire and shame. Instead, she took a deep drag on her cigarette. “Before you go, Tommy, will you light a fire for me?”

His eyes widened for just a moment, long enough to let her know he'd guessed why she'd asked the favor. But he didn't mock her, at least no more than a very small smile. “Of course, sweetheart.”

He went to the hearth and crouched. He took some of the newspaper that she hadn't noticed from beneath a brick to one side and began to bunch it up, putting it around the logs. He opened the flu and then set light to it with a taper and soon it was crackling away cheerfully.

“I'll put some more wood on when I come up.” He said. “Don't trouble yourself.”

She didn't say that it wouldn't have occurred to her that more wood would need to be brought. Instead she nodded. “Thank you.”

When he was gone she changed into her sleeping clothes. Despite the fire, Annabelle found the bed cold without Tommy next to her. She pulled Charlie's little body against her, curling around him protectively and listened to the sounds of men's voices speaking through the floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: Wow, a whole chapter without gratuitious, needless, deviant smut. No one was expecting that, eh? I'm honestly sort of proud of myself! Don't worry though, I will be back to my usual trash goblin (thank you kind commenter who taught me this phrase! SO SUITABLE) in the next chapter. You know I couldn't do two in a row... nope, no possible. Anyway let me know what you thought about the Charlie-Annabelle stuff, the chapter in general, the usual! I'm also dying to know what you want to see them do now that they're back in Birmingham! Honestly if you suggest something and I can see it... I will include it in the next chapters! :D :D :D Please write me lots of comments I don't deserve. I will love you forever if you do.


	16. Chapter 16

The days at the Watery Lane house were some of the loneliest she could remember. She knew no one in Birmingham except the Shelbys and they were consumed with the business of war. Tommy often left in the morning before she woke and returned after she had put Charlie to bed and fallen fitfully asleep herself, if he came home at all.

Ada and Polly had returned to Birmingham as well but, like everyone else, they were at the offices at all hours. She'd been left with a girl that Mrs. Afton had recommended named Nell to look after her and the house, a Blinder to take her wherever she wanted to go, and Charlie and Karl to look after. Sometimes Ada or Polly took her breakfast with her but otherwise everyone else seemed consumed by company business, the war, or other pursuits about which she was not told.

For herself, she felt like a shipwrecked sailor, lost on a strange shore and with little to do but try to survive. She'd finished all her thank-you notes for wedding gifts, taken the boys to all the new pictures at the small and dingy theater around the corner, and taught them how to play tiddly-winks properly, finished the novel she'd brought from London and started to sow monograms into most of Karl's clothes. And without Tommy to fuck her thrice a day, she was beginning to feel as if the walls of the house were coming closer. In short, she was more than ready for an outing when Charlie proposed one.

“Will you take me to Charlie's to see uncle Curly, Annie?” Charlie asked her as they took breakfast in the cramped little kitchen a few days later. “Karl says he has a new pony he'll let us ride.”

“Is it far from here?”

“No, I don't think so.”

“Alright then, I don't see why not.”

Tommy had said that they weren't meant to stray very far from the house on Watery lane but other than that had not put any restrictions on her movement.

So she Charlie, and Karl dressed for the sunny day and stepped out. The Blinder with her was not a man she knew and as a whole, she found the men who worked for Tommy difficult to befriend. The tall, intimidating men with guns under their coats were nothing like anyone she had ever met before. It was clear that they were not given any orders to be friendly with her and all she usually got for her questions was single word answers. So she let Charlie lead the way, she and the Blinder following after. She listened to the little boy chattering without really bothering to pay attention as they walked through the unfamiliar streets.

Small Heath was unfamiliar to her not just in the sense that she had never been there, but that she had never known a similar place. She took pains to stand out as little as possible, wearing what she considered her plainest dresses, but still she was keenly aware of the notice she drew. Men and women crossed the street when they saw her, children fell silent and stopped their play. Charlie did not seem to notice this odd behavior but Annabelle could not help but find it unsettling.

Even after the kidnapping, when the people she knew had taken more notice of her than usual, she had never felt like an outsider. She had not enjoyed the attention. The well-meaning expressions of ' _oh how horrible_ ' and ' _I'm so so sorry it had to happen to you_ ' and ' _such a sweet girl for such a terrible thing to happen_ ' had made her feel worse, rather than better. But at least she had understood it. If it had happened to another girl instead, it would have been her who had offered similar annoying platitudes. Even if she had not liked the role she had been meant to play, she had at least understood it.

In Small Heath, she had no idea how she was perceived, how she was expected to act. Who was she to the women who stopped walking to stare openly as she went by, the men who paused their work and tipped their hats but said nothing? Wife of their MP, Omega to the head of the Peaky Blinders, Viscountess from the papers? Certainly she saw nothing in their eyes that reflected anything of the Annabelle Grant that she had known.

_Annabelle Shelby now_ , she reminded herself for the thousandth time. Her Mating gland seemed to itch when she thought of herself in that way. She didn't think she would ever feel like a Shelby, not unless Tommy were to... but that thought she cut short, for it brought a host of thoughts and sensations much more troublesome and dangerous than a small itch at the base of her neck.

She had expected Charlie's to be another house. So she was surprised, to say the least, that it was some kind of metal scrap yard attached to a factory. She could see at once why Charlie had wanted to come, the place was a paradise for two little boys, and Curly was a gentle and friendly giant. He showed her and Charlie the horses, the smelting station and the narrow boats.

It occurred to her only very, very slowly, that this was not the first time she had been to this place.

It was the smell that gave it away in the end: the mix of fecund, miry waters of the canal and the burning of metal. The thought that she had smelled it before was like a stone in her shoe or a loose tooth she kept worrying with her mind until she worked out where she was.

And the moment she had, it felt, she turned around and there he was.

She'd been sitting on some piece of scrap metal with a relatively clean tarp thrown over, watching the boys play with Curly and the horse, taking turns trotting, and she turned because she'd caught the scent of him on the wind. He was standing, smoking, as if he'd been there the whole time. She had not heard him approach but he stood only a few feet away, almost on the edge of the canal.

“I didn't think Charlie would remember this place. Much less how to get here.” He said, by way of an explanation. “Charlie Strong sent word though, when you arrived. He was there... the last time you were here.”

She considered him for a long moment. “You think I should be kept from this place?”

“If you want to be. Can't be a comfortable memory for you.”

“It isn't. But neither am I afraid to be here.” She shrugged. “You didn't rape me here, after all.”

He was done with his cigarette and he strolled forward to stand by where she sat, watching the two boys play. He lit another and passed it to her, which she took without comment, then lit another for himself.

“No, I didn't rape you here.” He agreed. “But you were drugged and afraid, despite the Heat I think.”

He hadn't realized the hand that wasn't holding the cigarette was in a fist until he felt small fingers running over his own larger ones. She took the clenched hand in both her own, bringing his knuckles to her lips. She pressed soft kisses to the little scars there, running her fingers softly across them until he relented, opening his palm and letting her take his hand between hers. She turned the palm over, running her fingers as soft as rivulets of water.

“Mostly I was out of my mind with want. But there was part of me that recognized that I didn't know you, that I didn't even know where I was, that it was a bad idea to beg you as I was.”

He said nothing to that. He didn't like to hear the words, but recognized the truth within them. They hadn't known each other then and however she felt about him now, whatever... fondness she had developed for him since, she wasn't witless. She wasn't some Omega princess in a fairy tale to take one look at an Alpha and fall in love with his scent and his knot.

She glanced up at him. “Thank you... again, for...”

She trailed off when he made noise of displeasure with his tongue. “I've told you before, Annabelle, I'll not take thanks for that.”

“Why not?”

He dragged in a breath of smoke and blew it out before answering, but when he spoke he managed to keep his words even. “Because it was only as much as you should expect from an Alpha, from a man... from another fucking human being.”

“Many wouldn't say the same. Mosley... hell I'm not sure my mother really believes that.”

He didn't meet her gaze, glancing out over the murky waters of the Cut. “Well they're fucking wrong, eh?”

“But I do give you thanks, Thomas, even if you will not accept it.” She said.

She peered into his palm, almost curiously, as if she intended to read his fortune there or as if she saw her own reflection. Then she pressed her lips to the center with a reverence that made something in his chest clench painfully. This woman, this fucking woman... it was so easy to mistake her for a girl. Sometimes when he fucked her he called her one. Her pretty manners, her designation and class, the sweet and pliable way she smiled and giggled with her friends, or fell to her knees to suck his cock all of it made her easy to mistake for someone who was not his equal, not fully her own individual. But to misunderstand that would be a pitiful waste of what she really was.

A little thing with her knees to her chest in the bathtub, one arm keeping them there while she smoked and told him not to hold back, a warm kiss on the palm and thanks he didn't deserve, slender thighs on either side of his in the back of his Bently, begging him to fuck her... those were the parts of her that mattered, after all. Those were the parts of her that were not the Omega, but rather Annabelle herself. As an Alpha he could command the Omega, as her husband he could control her as a legal entity, but between Thomas and Annabelle, she had to choose to give herself to him. She had to choose to kneel, to beg, to _present_.

It always felt like a fucking miracle when she did.

He didn't know how he would survive the moment when she chose not to.

So he pushed the thought away, content for now to indulge in the feeling of her soft fingers curled in his own. For a moment he let them smoke in companionable silence, then turned to her.

“It occurs to me, sweetheart, that I've been neglecting you, since we arrived in Birmingham.” He said as he shrugged his shoulders back into his jacket. He offered her a hand, pulling her back to sit beside him on the bale of hay. He passed the cigarette he'd lit to her as he did so, so as not to get ash on his sleeves.

She took a drag. “Oh?”

“I think I should take you out tonight, eh? Show you a bit of the local culture.”

“A bit of the local culture? What does that mean?”

He put an arm around her waist and drew her in for a kiss. He pushed back a strand of hair from her face and peered down into it. “Put on a dress, one you know that I like. Do something nice with your hair. And, I'll take you out on the town.”

“What time shall I be ready?”

“Seven o'clock. I'll send a car to bring you to me.”

He brushed a kiss across her mouth, then turned to leave.

“Should I be scared, where we're going?”

He turned and shot her a wink. “Not so long as you stay close to me, eh?”

She did dress with care that evening, taking time to pick out a deep blue dress of silk crepe. It was fine enough material to have been a ball gown, expensive enough as well, but it was cut for more of a dinner party. With it she wore dark red shoes that matched the belt and handbag she had selected.

Nell's looked impressed when she came down the stairs. “Why, fuck, ma'am, you look a bloody picture.”

Annabelle smiled and smoothed down the front of her dress. “Thank you, Nell. Very kind of you to say so.”

She did think she'd done rather well for herself, particularly as she had done her hair herself. The dress accented her small waist, the gamine curves of her arms and legs. The height of the neckline was severe but that alone suggested that she needed to hide the ruin he'd made of her neck. In short, she looked as she knew he wanted her too: pliant, submissive and pretty for him. The car was waiting for her in the lane and she got in. “Good evening Mrs. Shelby.”

“Good evening.”

Dusk was just beginning to settle over the streets, enough that the man in front put the headlights of the car on but not enough that she couldn't see the streets outside. He navigated between piles of coal, hawkers and horses and people on foot. Theirs was the only car they passed in this party of the city. When he finally pulled to a stop at the corner of an alley that seemed no different from any of the ones they'd passed, she looked around for what had blocked their path.

“Have we arrived?” She asked, incredulously, when she realized he did not intend to drive on.

“Yes, ma'am. The Garrison.”

The sign over the pub did indeed read The Garrison. It looked perhaps a little better cleaned and the paint was fresher than any of the other pubs she'd passed in Birmingham but nothing else set it apart.

“Mr. Shelby said to meet me here?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

For a moment she let herself imagine what she would do if she went through those doors and found that Tommy was not waiting for her. If he was late or if the driver had mistaken the instructions, what would she do? What in the fucking world had possessed her to pick a dress that made the bloody maid's mouth fall open, anyway?

She was conscious of the man watching her in the rear view mirror, very aware that she had waited too long already. But he said nothing, just watched her.

She could feel her palms sweating in her gloves and her heart beating in her throat. And then, suddenly, she smiled. He wanted her to walk in on her own, wanted to see if she would. _Fucking challenge_ , this was a fucking challenge. When he took a cane or a belt to her, he always knew just at the moment when her tears became real. She didn't know how he knew, even without looking at her face he could tell. Sometimes he stopped, and sometimes he told her, _just one more Annabelle, just one more and I'll stop_. He knew exactly how long it took her to start to really feel fear when he put his cock down her throat and she couldn't breathe, and sometimes he let it go on just a moment longer.

That's what this felt like: something a bit on the far side of danger, something new and scary and something that she wanted more than anything... something he wanted to see if she would allow. She'd let him fuck her mouth, beat her, tie her, pull her hair back and put her in a collar and chains. Why, in God's name, did he think she would balk at this, eh?

“Right, thank you sir.”

The man got out and opened her door for her, helping her out, then went and opened the door of the pub. “He's at a table in the back, ma'am.” He told her.

But he needn't have said anything. Tommy, as ever, was not easy to miss. He sat at a table with his back against the far wall, smoking and watching the door. There was nothing in particular that set the table apart, except for the men who sat at it, and the deferential space that the other patrons provided them. He looked like a king, with his court all around him-- the cigarette in his fingers might as well have been a scepter or a _globus cruciger_. From across the room, bright blue eyes seemed to pin her in place for a moment and she didn't imagine that there was lull in the noise of the bar.

She took of her coat and hung it on the rack with her hat, keenly aware that he was tracking her every move. As she walked toward the table people didn't exactly stare at her but she was aware that she'd never moved through such a press so easily. Men, without look at her, leaned or shifted out of her way to create a path to the table, as readily as if Tommy had moved them physically, rather than with whatever form of control he truly exerted over this domain.

Once, alone with him in the library at Arrow house she had thought that if she had screamed for help, no one would have come for her. Now she felt that same understanding in a crowded bar. He was a king here. No one in all the rows of men between them would lift a finger to controvert his will, no matter the provocation.

He stood as she neared the table. He didn't stride forward, so it wasn't possible that he was really swaggering but somehow he managed to convey the sentiment without anything more than opening his arms. He put one arm around her waist and drew her flush against him, much closer than was completely proper, close enough to feel his cock against her.

“You're late sweetheart.”

The kiss was not exactly passionate, but nor was it restrained. He sampled each part of her lips with his own, as if deciding how best to enjoy her. She tilted her head back, letting him take her as he pleased. When he stepped back from her, she blushed, aware that the kiss had not been quite proper in such a public place.

He picked up his cigarette and took a drag, gesturing for the man behind the counter to come over. She was blushing furiously as he seated her next to him.

“What will the lady have, Mr. Shelby?” The barkeep, speaking to him rather than her.

“Gin and tonic, Harry.”

“I am surprised that you aren't in the snug.” She said when he had settled her beside him. “Are they not shocked, to see their MP drinking?”

“Believe me, sweetheart, being seen with a woman like you does more for my reputation with this lot, than a little whiskey in my hand does it damage.” He waved his hand at the patrons of the bar, “these men here have known me since the name Shelby meant fortune telling and horse thieving, not just since before I was an MP. And now they see me with a girl like you on my arm.”

She didn't have to ask what he meant by 'a girl like her': titled, posh, Omega and young. She was ashamed at how wet the idea of being displayed in this way made her, as if she were little more than an object, through which he conveyed his status—akin to his expensive suits or watch fob or Bentley. It was the idea that she was something precious to him, something he would fight to that made those deep muscles clench within her stomach.

“Does it make you happy, Thomas? That others should see that you own me?” Her voice was a hoarse whisper.

His smile was a thing straight from the devil, a small upward turning of his mouth that made her knees weak. He took a small inhalation, smelling her arousal beneath the scent of alcohol and men around them. “Not, I think, so happy as it makes you, Annabelle.”

She blushed and said nothing, looking down prettily. But he caught her chin between two fingers. “It's you who is not meant to be seen here, not me. But you already know that, don't you sweetheart?” His fingers curled around her hips, a possessive, claiming gesture. “The only other women in here are barmaids or whores.”

There was no use denying the truth of it. Even she was not so naive as to think that the women laughing in the laps of the men at the bar were not expecting to be paid for their time.

He pulled her close, almost into his lap, a movement so abrupt that she startled, putting one hand on his strong thigh as he pulled her against him. “Are you a whore, Annabelle?” He did not speak in a whisper but something about the low, grating quality of his voice made her sure that only she had heard him. “I know you're no barmaid.”

She licked her lips, mouth suddenly dry. “Do you want me to be?”

“Why don't we find out, eh?”

He fished in his waistcoat pocket for a few notes and put them on the table. She was keenly aware that the money was visible to the bar patrons and the thought brought a prickling rush of mixed embarrassment and heat that swept over her, leaving her breathless.

She swallowed, thickly. She should have been horrified by the idea of meeting him in a brothel, she told herself quite sternly that the very idea of it should be terrifying. But his words instead stirred in her something molten and hot, as did the cold desire that had come into his eyes as he spoke... the clench of his jaw and the set of his lips that told her to expect rough use.

She reached for the notes but stopped when he made a soft click with his tongue against the roof of his mouth, a sound of warning. “Don't take those notes lightly, Annabelle. Don't imagine that if I buy you for the night, I don't intend to get my money's worth.”

She hesitated.

“I have the best table at the Midland reserved for us and a very nice bottle of champagne waiting for you. After that I'll take you home for a nightcap and have Nell light a fire and bring some tea.”

“And if I take it?”

His gaze was mesmerizing, two twin pools of blue that seemed to go on forever. “I won't hold back.”

With trembling fingers, she took the notes from the table and quickly folded them, putting them into her purse.

His smile was enough to make a little frisson of fear and anticipation shoot up her spine.

He stood and shrugged on his jacket from the end of the table, offering her his had. He put a few more notes down on the table for the drinks and then guided her back out to the alley where the Bentley was still waiting for them. “I'll drive meself from here on, Paul, you go home to the wife and kids.” He told the man in the front.

“As you like, Tommy.”

He opened the door of the passenger seat and she got in. He didn't speak to her as he guided the car through the dark streets, no did he reach for her hand as he might have normally done. She frowned when she saw their destination however, turning to him. “I thought you said...”

“If I want to hear your voice tonight, sweetheart, I will let you know.”

The entrance to the Midland was brilliantly lit compared to the dark labyrinth of alleyways around the Garrison, almost like a beacon in dark woods. The circle driveway was full of a steady flow of cars and men darting between them. Tommy navigated to the front of the line and handed the keys of the Bently to the valet who came to take them. “Evening, Mr. Shelby.” The boy said.

Tommy opened her door and took her by the elbow, guiding her up the steps to the double doors that were opened for them. Instead of turning to their left toward the dining room she could see vaguely through the watered glass windows, he took them across the lobby to the reception desk.

“Good evening Mr. Shelby, I heard you would be dining with us this evening. Always good to see you at the Midland, sir.” The man behind the desk said.

“Change of plans actually,” Tommy told him. “I'll need my usual suite for the night. We'll take dinner up stairs.”

“Very good sir.”

The man fetched a key from the rows of boxes behind the desk and handed it to Tommy. “Can I send anything up for you in the meantime, Mr. Shelby? The usual bottle of whiskey, I presume? Some champagne for the lady perhaps?”

“The whiskey will be fine.”

Tommy took the key and turned away from the desk. He handed the key to Annabelle. “The room is on the top floor. Go into the bedroom and bend over the side of the bed. Take off your knickers, pull your skirt over your waist and wait for me.”

“Where are you going?”

“Whores don't ask questions, Annabelle.”

She took the key and went to the elevator feeling terrified and excited all at once. The liftman pressed the button for the fourth floor without asking and shut the gate behind her. Through the intricate gold pattern of the bars she could see Tommy was watching as the doors closed and the lift went up.

The liftman opened the door for her and let her into a suite. Annabelle had of course been in suites before. By all accounts she should have felt more at home in the lavish, modern decorations of the room then she did at the house on Watery Lane. But she had never been in one alone, not waiting for a man who had told her to take off her knickers and wait for him. Her heart was beating so hard she thought it would be audible to anyone else in the room.

On the sideboard she could see a bottle of nice whiskey that Tommy liked and wondered if she had time to pour herself a glass to steady her nerves. But who knew how long he would be and she didn't want to chance it. So she went into the bedroom and did as he had bid. She slid down her knickers and folded them neatly on the bedside table. Then she bent over the side of the bed and lifted her skirt over her ass.

The room air was not particularly cold but the position was one of such vulnerability it made her skin prickle with gooseflesh at the idea of it. Positioned as she was she wouldn't be able to see anyone who came into the room but she herself would be readily visible from anyone standing in the entrance hall of the room. Should she get up and close the door of the bedroom? She wondered.

The suite was silent except for the faint ticking of a clock in the main room and the thunderous sound of her own heart. Her legs began to ache from the half-crouched position and her nose began to itch. But somehow she thought Tommy would know if she hadn't obeyed him. Those cold blue eyes seemed to plumb the very depths of her without much effort.

Why in the name of Jesus and all the saints had she taken the money? She wondered. She could have been downstairs with a glass of champagne, eating asparagus tips in cream or oysters or whatever other decadent little treat Tommy ordered. What was wrong with her that she had chosen this as her alternative? Had it been the challenge in his eyes, the tension in his jaw that told her to expect more than the usual amount of roughness or something else... the desire to please him, at any cost.

What felt like an eternity later she heard the main door of the room open and footsteps in the hallway. She knew better than to turn her head to look behind her as she heard the footsteps cross the room to the sideboard and a drink being poured. Then the footsteps turned toward her, coming into the room. The smell of him sent a shiver up her spine—that familiar but always astonishing scent of smoke, gunpowder and something feral and masculine and metallic that never failed to make her knees weak.

He came into the bedroom without speaking. She could hear him inhale, the slight crackle of paper burning and the smell told her he had a cigarette in his fingers and knew somehow, from the prickle of her skin, that he was looking at her. She heard him put out the cigarette in an ash tray, then approach the bed. She could hear him taking off his waistcoat, pocket-watch, sleeve garters and collar. Next came his shoes, laying them carefully by the bed.

She struggled not to shiver and quake as he took her hands from where they lay beside her. She tensed instinctively but let him cross her wrists behind her back. She felt coarse material pressed to her flesh and realized he intended to tie her hands. When her wrists were bound she heard him adjusting his clothing, not his belt she thought based on the sound. His tie, she realized a moment later when the fabric slid over her eyes and cinched tight behind her head.

The sight of her bent over the bed was incredible. The smell of her too, as her slick was practically drooling down one leg. Tommy felt his cock might burst from his trousers looking at her. He slid his hands beneath her, together they were large enough to easily span her shoulders, and gripped the collar of her dress. With a brutal movement he ripped it down, popping a few buttons as he did. He caught the edge of her brassiere, taking it as well until she lay with her breasts bare against the slightly rough embroidery of the bedspread, her elbows tangled in the sleeves and pulled back a bit by the dress, exaggerating the lordosis of her spine.

He had planned to fuck her in this position but given the state of her and his own cock he didn't trust either of them to last very long. But he had always been nothing if not adaptable.

She was not surprised when she heard him draw off his belt. She shivered. “Do you want me to count, Tommy?”

“What did I say about questions and speaking?”

He slapped her ass with his hand, not with his full strength though, only as if to startle her. “I asked you a question, sweetheart.”

“You said not to speak until you asked me, and that whores don't ask questions.” She squeaked.

He let one finger trail between her slit, making her moan and arch as he circled her clit with one finger, not with enough pressure to satisfy, only to increase the ache. “Another point of etiquette you'll need to learn: no whore has called me 'Tommy' in years. Not since I got my MP, likely not since my OBE. What do you think they call me, eh?”

This time she knew he wanted an answer to the question. She gulped. “Mr. Shelby?” She ventured.

He smiled. God the little waver of hesitation in her voice went straight to his cock. “That's better.” He told her. “Sir is fine as well... I am a knight after all.”

It was a ridiculous thing to say to a Viscountess but she didn't look like one at the moment, bent over and trussed up, waiting for him to spank her. “Yes, sir.” She managed.

The belt cracked down on her without warning, making her jump and scream in surprise. He settled one hand over her wrists, keeping her from standing. A red line like a jet of flame bloomed on her ass where he had struck her. He hauled her back into position without waiting for her cooperation and let another blow fall. This time she jumped but did not try to stand or move out of position.

He stopped only once her ass was an angry mass of red flesh and she was sobbing and he thought he might cum just from the sight of it. He put down the belt on the bed beside her and took her by the hair, pulling her briefly to her feet before settling her on her knees before him. He stood over her, trapping her between his body and the bed. he pulled her forward until she knelt between his thighs, pressing her face to his cock through the fabric of his trousers, letting her feel how hard beating her had made him.

With one hand he undid the button and zip and fished himself out, with the other he brought her head forward. His hand, tangled in her hair, was wide enough to span almost from ear to ear. That alone would have been enough to render her helpless, particularly tied and blind as she was. But he wanted more. He stepped forward, pushing her back so she had to lean backward, unbalanced on her knees and with her head pressed against the side of the bed, unable to move backward. In this position he could thrust as deep as he liked and she would be forced to take it. He settled both hands on her head and began to pump into her throat. She gagged, having been given no time to adjust to anticipate but he paid her no attention, fucking her mouth as if she were little more than an instrument designed to please him. The swallowed him down with some effort finally and the sight of her nose against his abdomen combined with the exquisite pressure of her mouth was enough to make his head fall back in pleasure.

He lasted as long as he could but finally with a groan he arched his hips into her mouth and the world shattered away, pleasure rolling through his body like warm waves. He spilled himself into her and she swallowed eagerly.

When he was spent and softened he didn't remove himself from her mouth immediately and she, dutifully, held him there, not lapping at the now too-sensitive head but allowing him to continue to hold her head pressed to the hilt of him.

Finally he drew her back and she swallowed, licking lips that were swollen from rough use.

Unable to help himself he let his fingers slide over her cheek. “Good girl.”

“Thank you, Mr. Shelby.” She murmured, turning her face, eyes still blindfolded, up to him for approval and tears staining her cheeks. Her lips were pink from rough use.

He stepped back and zipped himself up, leaving her on her knees and went out to the main room. She heard him pour himself another whiskey and pick up the phone. “Yes, have the kitchen send up our dinner, please.” The flick of the lighter and the smell of smoke told her that he had lit another cigarette.

A few moments later she heard someone knock at the door and Tommy called for them to come in. “Where would you like to take your dinner, Mr. Shelby?” A male voice asked.

“The coffee table by the fire will do.”

“Very good, sir.”

There were the sounds of plates being moved, the clink of dishes on glass and slowly the smell of heavenly food filled the suite. The waiter who had brought the food pointed out the dishes, complimenting Tommy on his selection. She heard the pop of the champagne being opened and the other man remarked on the excellent vintage.

“Is there anything else you require, Mr. Shelby?”

“No, that will be all.”

She heard the door shut in the front of the suite and then Tommy's footsteps coming back into the bedroom. He knelt behind her and untied her hands. “Take off your dress and blindfold and come into the parlor.”

“Yes, sir.”

When he left she stood, pushing off the tie that covered her eyes. She didn't tarry, taking off the dress (the buttons she noted would need to be sowed back on and she would have to call one of the maids in the hotel to do it before she left in the morning, else she would never be descent). She folded the dress next to her knickers and went into the parlor after him.

He sat facing the fire, his back to the door she came through. The eternal cigarette dangled from his fingertips as he regarded the flames. “Come here.”

She started forward.

“Crawl.”

The command stopped her short, making her sex clench with desire. Slowly, she sank to her knees, putting her hands to the carpet slowly. He sat at a low couch before the fire. The food was spread on a table toward the large window opposite the door. He let her crawl forward until she was knelt between his knees, face pressed against his trousers. She could feel that he was already half hard again. She herself was dripping, still aroused and given no satisfaction. She ached for him to be inside of her, almost worried that she would drip down onto the carpet and shame herself for whatever maid cleaned up the room in the morning.

She so rarely saw him dressed like this, in just his trousers and shirt and she wanted to savor the unexpectedly domestic moment between them. If it could be called domestic, what with her kneeling naked before him, pretending to be his whore.

He didn't take her face in his hand as he usually did, offered no caress or affection. Instead he continued to look forward into the fire, “fix a plate of food, and come here.”

“Can I stand, sir?”

“Yes.”

She stood and went to the table. The food smelled incredible: beef wellington, roasted new potatoes in duck fat, chicken in lemon and cream sauce and fresh rolls. She put a generous serving of it all on a plate and came back to stand before him. He took her by the hip and one hand, pulling her forward and guiding her to kneel on his lap, her bare thighs straddling one of his own.

“Are you hungry, sweetheart?”

He fed her with his fingers, tearing the chicken and potatoes apart into bite-sized pieces before bring them to her lips. Occasionally he brought a sip of whiskey to her lips. When he was finished he brought his fingers to her lips for her to lick clean which she did obediently and without question. She could feel his erection beginning to grow again, against her knee and for herself she was sopping, so aroused she barely tasted the food, delicious though it was.

When his hands were clean, wiped on a napkin, he let himself explore her body. His fingers play over her hips, her waist, rolling a nipple between his fingers as he drank in the sight of her. He dipped his fingers into his whiskey and painted each hark peak with the liquor so that the evaporation cooled them, hardening them even further. He slid his hands up to encircle her waist, testing the width of it.

“Do you really do this with whores?” She asked.

His eyes flashed in cold anger that made her sex clench and her knew he could feel the tightening of her body, close as they were. “Am I going to have to gag you, eh, girl?”

“No, sir.” She said meekly.

“The answer to your question, however, is that I do what I like with whores, eh? And I like to watch you eat from my hand, sit on my lap, and do as I bid.”

“Yes, sir.” She gulped.

“Now the real question is what to do with you next, eh?”

He slid his fingers down to grip her hips, spreading her the plump cheeks of her ass so she was vulnerable and exposed, cool air reaching the soft skin where it normally never reached, making her shiver. He slid one hand down, slipping his long fingers down to caress her soaked slit. She groaned, arching forward so he slid across the tender nub that made her shake.

“Whatever you like, sir.” She moaned.

The smile that flickered across his lips was so small she missed it entirely with her eyes closed and her head tilted back as it was. He parted her folds and slid a finger in, reveling in the way she groaned, arching and desperate. “Not hard to tell what you like, is it, Annabelle?”

“No, Tom... Mr. Shelby.”

“And if I were to want my cock sucked instead? If I were to leave you without satisfaction and cum down your throat? What then?”

She was moving, canting her hips back and forth on his fingers as if the slim digit could ever be enough to satisfy her. “Please, sir...” She gasped.

“You want that I should fuck you, eh?”

“Yes, sir.... please.”

“And why should I, eh? Your mouth satisfied me well enough before. How are you to make it worth my while?”

“Anything... anything you want... Mr. Shelby...”

His fingers moved at a steady, maddening rate—not enough to satisfy but keeping her on the red, infinite edge of pleasure. She was gasping, eyes unfocused and breath coming only with effort. “I know it's anything I want, girl. I've paid for you, haven't I? And you know that to, don't you? If I want to beat you again, I will, if I want to fuck your mouth, I will, if I want to fuck your cunt or your ass... I will.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Would you like to beg me then? Beg me for mercy?”

“Would it do me any good? To beg?” She gasped.

“No, not particularly.”

“Please... please, Mr. Shelby, please fuck me... please...”

He let himself chuckle at that. “Good girl.”

He took her by the hair and pulled her off his lap, standing in the same movement. The movement was enough to unbalance her. She stumbled as he strolled toward the bedroom, taking her with him. He took her to the bed and dragged her forward, sending her sprawling over the side of the bed.

This time he didn't take the time to bind her. He stripped quickly out of his trousers and shirt. He took her roughly by the hips and pulled her up. He undid he pants and thrust into that hot, waiting, warmth. She gasped as he did, fingers curling in the bedspread. The feeling of him in her was, as always, overwhelming and satisfying all at once. He filled and stretched her just to the point of pain. “Alpha!” She gasped. “Oh, thank you Alpha.”

He cracked his hand down over her ass cheek. “None of that, eh. I'm not your Alpha, I'm the man who has fucking bought you tonight.”

“Yes... yes... yes please, sir, please fuck me.” She babbled. “Anything, please, sir, just please...”

She came quickly, her muscles fluttering around him. Her knuckles were white and her goes gripped the carpet so hard that her feet felt they might break but with his considerable weight pressing down on her, for he was not taking care not to grip her roughly, she could do little else. One hand left her hip to grip the back of her head, jerking her head back as she let out a strangled cry of pleasure. White light seemed to flare across her vision, erasing all thought or memory of anything that came before it.

In that moment she knew only the sensation of him moving within her and the blinding warmth of her orgasm.

When she returned to her senses her predicament had not changed, he still held her by the head and the hips, thrusting into her. And his knot was beginning to swell, stretching her painfully. The abundant slick pooling between them was enough to make it easy for him to slide as deeply into her as he pleased but did nothing to spare her the tormenting stretch of him. His cock alone was thick enough to be almost painful when it was sheathed within her fully. The wide knot, particularly in this position, was difficult to take out of Heat. And she had come so quickly she did not doubt that he would knot her before she could build that pleasure back up enough to cum again.

And yet... she found she wanted to please him, wanted him to know that she would take whatever he chose to bestow on her. She tilted her hips up, gasping a bit as he entered her more fully. She clenched herself a bit as he withdrew, increasing the tight squeeze of herself, making them both gasp—her in pain and him in surprise and pleasure.

His fingers tightened on her hips, hard enough she knew she would have bruises there in the morning. “Fuck!” He swore. “Look at me!” He jerked her head to the side so he could see the slight wince she couldn't hide when he thrust into her. “You fucking take my knot, eh?”

“Yes.... sir... anything....”

He knew better, even as he did it, he knew it was a bad idea. He let his hand slide down, long fingers wrapping around her neck. Her expression didn't change at the position, the proximity of his hand to her windpipe or the threat inherent within. Already, the second he'd let go of her hair, in fact, her head was tilting forward into _presentation_. As she arched forward his thumb slid over the Mating gland and she shivered. The sound that came from her throat was a whining, pleading noise like nothing he'd ever heard. His fingers tightened on her throat and her hip, almost involuntarily.

He bent forward, dragging his mouth over the thin skin of the Gland. Beneath he could smell blood, salt, life and the soft, enveloping warmth of her. Bond her. Bond her and she would be his forever. If she took his Mark she would be his, undeniably his. He could have her, just then, really have her. He could Rut her... have her Heats and give her children. Fuck but he wanted this woman. He wanted her more than he could ever remember wanting anything.

And why shouldn't he Mark her? She had asked him more time that she had asked him not to, hadn't she? She must know, must be able to tell, how each time she did he came closer to failing to restrain himself. She must feel the tension in his arms at her throat, the way his teeth sank fractionally deeper into her skin each time he had to pull back.

For a long second he thought he really might Mark her this time. He was frozen, buried to the hilt in the heat and warmth of her, unable to pull himself away from the smell of her Gland, the smooth, warm skin of her back. He would be good to her, this little bird that had fluttered into his lap and his life. He might not be the soft, posh country gentleman she had imagined for herself but he would keep her safe, safe in a way that others couldn't.

But he was her Alpha. He would keep her safe. Even from himself. Even from herself.

He pressed his lips to the Gland and pulled back. “No, Annabelle, not like this.”

He let his hand trail back to her hair, pulling her head to the side. He opened her neck as he began to move again within her. She sobbed as he did it, though he suspected more from frustration and desire than the pain of it. Still, she didn't argue or protest as he began to fuck her again, his knot swelling within her. She groaned as it began to get big enough to tie her.

He pushed her chest down against the bedspread, forcing the air from her lungs and keeping her still. He put the widest part of his knot just at the entrance of her. She would have moaned if she could have, sobbed, begged or pleaded perhaps. Instead only the white knuckles of her fists in the sheets gave away her feelings.

When her second orgasm hit and she clenched down on him, stars exploded for them both. This time in that void of nothingness, he was there with her. The warm, secure control of him was like his body pressing hers to the bed, like his hand on her shoulder or hip, like his cock within her. Her Alpha.

When they were both spent, he hauled her up on the bed. He arranged her so that she lay across the broad expanse of his chest. They were still tied together, his knot buried within her. He let his fingers trail up the side of her ribs lazily as they lay together, panting. One of her neck glands was still bleeding a bit, occasional drops of blood trickling onto his shoulders and then onto the bedspread.

He put his hand between her shoulder blades and guided her up to sitting, then took one thigh and pulled her so she faced him, straddling his hips, still tied to him. He lounged against the pillows at the head of the bed, drinking in the sigh of her for a moment. She still looked slightly dazed, from the bite and the fucking—sleepy and well used. Her nipples were raw from his ministrations and rubbing against the embroidered bedspread. He leaned over to bedside table where he had left his cigarettes and lit one.

The movement shifted him within her and she groaned, rocking back and forth on him for a moment until he spurted again within her and she came with a little shuddering moan. He lit the cigarette, the free hand resting at her hip.

“Have I earned my wages yet?” She asked.

“For fifty pounds I'd expect to have you till morning.”

“What shall I do for you then, Mr. Shelby?”

This time though, he didn't scold her for the question. “Just let me look at you.”

Annabelle woke with the cold, blue light of early morning filtering through the lace curtains of the suite with a pit in her stomach. In the haze of whiskey, champagne and lust the night before she hadn't understood (perhaps hadn't wanted to understand) the significance of the fact that he had taken an entire night to be with her in the middle of a conflict. She felt Tommy shift to get out of bed but did not feel him stand. She sat up, brushing hair and sleep from her eyes. “Tommy?”

“Go back to sleep, sweetheart.”

She crawled to him, putting her arm over his shoulder and tilting his head up to let him peer into his face. On her knees she could just barely look down into his face. She was looking for the little crease at the edge of his mouth that told her he was upset, or the tension in his jaw that spoke of either fear or angry. She let herself run her fingers over his mouth.

_I love you_. For a moment she heard the words so clearly in her head, she was afraid she had spoken them aloud. This man, this perfect man, when had he become almost like a part of her? Some extension of herself, more dear to her than an arm or a leg.

He cupped her face with one hand, brushing the backs of his fingers over the soft curve of her chin. He let his eyes wander her face, trying to memorize the little details of it: the curve of her brows, the shade of her eyes, the softness of her lips.

“You're leaving.” It wasn't a question.

“Yes.”

“What for?”

“Business.”

“Where are you going?”

“Glasgow.”

“Will you be gone long?”

“A few weeks, perhaps more.”

“Do you have to go?”

His smile was small, but genuine. Instead of answering her brushed a light kiss across her lips. She opened her mouth, soft, warm and invited, when he ran his tongue across her bottom lip. He pushed her back in the pillows, deepening the kiss. Her lips parted for him, welcoming him in as he sampled the soft, inviting cave of her mouth. His hand slid down the length of her side, stroking down the soft curve of her breast, the narrow waist and the flare of her hips. He found the edge of her night clothes with his fingers but did no more than slide one large thumb up her thigh, the warmth of his hand on her cool, soft skin, setting her aflame.

She moaned, arching into him.

He took her sweetly.

He had fucked her three more times the night, rolling her over onto her front to fuck her from behind, sleepy and willing and warm. Now there was no hint of the dominating, ruthlessness with with he had taken her just a few short hours ago. He took time with her pleasure, building her up with his fingers and lips until she was gasping and writhing against her. Only when she was truly sobbing with need did he part her legs and sopping lips and fill her with himself.

And when he was finished, he arranged her against his chest, lounging against his side. He took a deep drag on his cigarette. “If anything should happen, Polly will take care of you.”

It wasn't the truth, not the whole truth anyway. He didn't tell her that he'd given Polly instructions to take her to America if he were killed, at least until the violence had blown over. She could stay in a resort in Florida or California, someplace with sunshine, that was out of the way until it was safe for her brother to bring her back to be remarried. But he didn't want to think of that now, not with the her soft breasts pressed against his chest, her plump ass in his hand.

She tilted her head up, resting her chin on his chest on her folded arms so she could meet his gaze. “I don't want Polly to take care of me, I want you to.”

There was nothing to say to that of course, so he just pulled her closer, savoring the feeling of her skin against his own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Blah, blah, blah... I know, sorry this took two million years. And I know it's my usual trash: 80% smut and 20% navel gazing introspection from the characters. Anyway the next chapter is going to start the drama, I promise! So get ready and excited for that! And, as always, please, please, please tell me what you think! I just need a little more motivation to get through this story! I'm so close! Please give me inspiration and love! Like Annabelle, apparently I will beg, even if not asked lol! :D Twinelove


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ******************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************Trigger warning/content warning: attempted rape/mentioned of nonconsensual sex (and not the pretend/fun kind)****************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

If Annabelle had thought that Birmingham was difficult to bear before, with Tommy gone it was like a waking nightmare. With the men gone to Glasgow Ada and Polly had more time to spend with her, and did their best to distract her. Ada took her shopping, to get her nails and hair done, to lunch at the Midland. Polly got her drunk and taught her how to balance an account and read a palm. But none of it really helped. When the smell of him began to fade from the bed, she felt like a caged animal on a sinking ship, watching water rise through the bars. The desire she felt for him was like a physical ache in her stomach, like there was a hole right in the center of her that could not be filled.

_What will it be like when we part for good? When I know he is not coming back?_ The thought was to painful though to entertain for long. Her mind skittered to it what felt like endlessly but then, just as quickly, moved on, as if it had touched a too-hot pan.

There were things that she couldn't help. With him out of the house it felt too vulnerable to sleep in a separate bedroom from Charlie. She slept almost curled about his little form, as if she were trying to make some protective cocoon for him of her own body. Besides, the smell of him reminded her of Thomas a bit, which kept her from something more pathetic. She couldn't help herself sometimes from opening the drawers of his clothes to catch the smell of him but she didn't want to indulge the insane desire she had to strew them on her bed, to make a nest, as she might if she were in Heat.

And then, quite suddenly, everything changed.

She was reading in the parlor. It was the afternoon and Charlie was playing at building a fort with Karl in the narrow little alley that ran behind the row of houses where the women hung the washing and kept chickens. She had sent Nell out to bring back some nice beef for dinner so she didn't look up when she heard the front door open and the creak of wood under footsteps. “Nell, did you remember...” the words died on her lips as she looked up. “Mr. Mosley.”

It was so incongruous to see him standing there in the entrance hall in Watery Lane, like opening her jewelry box and finding a snake where her necklace should be. She was on her feet at once, fighting the urge not to scramble back, to put some piece of furniture between them.

“Miss Grant.”

He had another Alpha with him, who, despite a sharp suit, did not strike Annabelle as a man from her class. He had the look of hired muscle-- a bodyguard of some kind perhaps. She did not miss the fact that, though Mosley came into the parlor itself, the other man hung back in the long corridor that connected the front and back door, where he could see both entrances (and exits) of the house. The thought felt like a wave of cold water washing over her, making her shiver and her flesh prickle.

Without waiting for an invitation Mosley came in from the entrance hall to the parlor and seated himself in the settee across from her, folding one elegantly-clad knee over the other. She made herself sit back in the chair she had stood from, forbidding herself from trembling. She swallowed, as if that would help rid her of the cloying tightness of fear that seized at her throat. “I didn't know you were in Birmingham, Mr. Mosley. Nor that you were planning to stop by for tea, I'm afraid I haven't had anything prepared.”

His smile was lazy but full of menace. “No need for tea. This is not a social call.”

“I'm sorry, I'm afraid I don't understand.” She said. “Are you looking for my husband?”

Mosley considered her for a moment before putting his hand into his suit pocket and drawing out his cigarettes. “Will the smoke bother you, my dear?”

“No, by all means.”

He lit the end of the cigarette and drew in a breath. “If I were to be looking for your husband in your parlor, Miss Grant, that would imply that I did not know that he is currently in Glasgow... that I had not noticed that he is allowing his little gypsy dispute over the waterways to spill over on my own interests in the north.”

So he didn't know that Tommy was acting against him on purpose. He hadn't guessed about the involvement of the Home Office or Tommy's real intentions. She had once told Tommy that Mosley was not the kind of man who thought of an Omega as someone who could have agency—designs and plans of their own. Perhaps the same thing was true of working class men, or those he considered of less desirable blood stock. Was it possible that in his arrogance, Mosley still saw Tommy as a pawn in this game?

If her heart leaped with a little hope that that thought, his next words sent it plummeting back down. “I'm afraid that it is time to remind you husband where his loyalties truly lie.”

“I'm afraid I don't know what you mean, sir.”

He pressed his lips together. “What I mean is this: we're going to have a little discussion. And after that, one way or another... I'm going to see your Mating gland.”

She gaped at him. “I beg your...”

Her eyes flicked to the door. There was a Blinder out on the step, surely there was.. there always was, Tommy had ordered it. She wasn't surprised that Mosley would have been let into the house. There would be no reason why Tommy's designs against the man would be widely known in his own organization, nor would there have been any reason to anticipate that Mosley might arrive at Watery Lane and warn the man posted outside not to let him in.

Mosley's gaze followed hers. “Oh, sing out, by all means, if you want the man on the stoop killed.”

The Alpha behind him recognized the cue and pulled back the quarter of his suit on the left to show her the revolver that lay at his hip. “A gunshot in the Small Heath house of Thomas Shelby... wont be investigated by anyone until Christmas, “Mosley continued. “None of the neighbors will want to know anything about it. A policeman walking by on the street would stop up his own ears, rather than hear it.”

She swallowed, heart pounding. Had Polly said she would stop by this afternoon? When was Ada coming to pick up Karl? Was there any reason Micheal might... she cast around desperately for something she thought might save her.

“It can be as difficult or as easy as you want, Omega.” His voice was impossibly even. “But I've been struck recently with the idea that you remain Unmarked and I intend see for myself.”

“Of course... of course I'm Marked. Of course I am.” She knew she was babbling but she couldn't help herself. “Don't be ridiculous. We were married... he would have no reason in the world not to Claim me.”

He leaned forward. “Then prove it.”

“I...I... Mr. Mosley this is not at all a proper thing to be discussing...”

The Alpha at the door stepped forward into the open archway that connected the parlor to the entrance hall. Annabelle stood and scrambled around the edge of the couch until her back was against the window. “This is ridiculous... Mr. Mosley you cannot mean to...”

“I can assure you, I am perfectly serious.”

The Alpha stepped forward again and Annabelle held up a hand. “Stop! No... don't... you don't have to touch me.”

Mosley's smile was completely devoid of humor. “No, Shelby wouldn't like that, would he?”

Mosley might have expected her to cry, she might have expected it of herself. But instead she felt nothing but fury as she began to undo the buttons of her blouse. When it was sufficiently undone she turned and drew it down until her Mating gland was visible, unblemished. Mosley hissed as it was revealed and he and the Alpha shifted slightly. Even smelling as strongly as she did of Tommy the sight would be arousing to them.

“Ah,” Mosley's voice was a sound of satisfaction. “Thomas Shelby never ceases to amaze. I hardly know if I'm disappointing or impressed he's managed to restrain himself.” He took a deep breath in. “I imagine you feel much the same way, Mrs. Shelby. Though I suppose it should be Miss Grant, properly, shouldn't it? A marriage without a Mark is nothing but a sham to all right thinking people. An Alpha who hasn't bitten his Omega has no claim to her, not under the eyes of God.”

She said nothing as she pulled the shirt back into place and buttoned it up. She turned to face Mosley again. She was trembling, a mixture of fury and fear so heady that she thought she might shake right out of her body. He stood and came forward and she watched him like she might watch a snake slither closer.

She held her head still as he reached up and took her chin.

“You are a pretty thing though, aren't you. Once your bites heal and the smell of him fades, it will be no trouble to find you an Alpha who will properly appreciate you, will it?”

“When Tommy finds out what you've done, he's going to fucking kill you.”

The slap landed before she had time to think, cracking her head back and opening her lip. She saw stars and felt a trickle of blood go down her chin. Mosley clucked his tongue disapprovingly. “Not very Omega-like, such language.”

His hand flicked toward her neck but then drew back. He did not want to touch her glands while Tommy's bite was still on them. That taboo was still to great, he was still repulsed by the smell of the other Alpha on her and that gave her the only protection she had for the moment, minimal though it was.

“You've learned some bad habits from _him_ , it appears. But no mater, once you're properly taken in hand, I'm sure your new Alpha can... iron out all the little wrinkles.”

“I'd rather fucking die than submit to anyone you would chose for me.”

He laughed. “My dear, I chose the first man you submitted too, didn't I? Hand picked the man the man who enjoyed your first Heat. Why shouldn't I pick the one who will have the last?” He looked her up and down, approvingly. “Now, I've told you, I don't like to hear rough words from such a delicate mouth. If you continue to use obscenities I will be forced to make my displeasure known physically. Tommy clearly hasn't shown you the discipline he should have. But make no mistake my dear, I will not hesitate to do much more than that little slap.”

She said nothing.

“Now, let me tell you what happens next. You're going to go out to the alley behind the house and collect Charles Shelby. The three of us are going to go out into the street and you're going to explain to the guard that I've been sent to take you to Mr. Shelby, at his special request.” He sneered. “You've proved yourself actress enough in these past few months, passing for a fucking proper Omega wife, so I'm sure you'll be convincing.”

She shook her head. “No.”

He ignored the word. “If any of that goes poorly, do not think I won't hesitate to have Billy here shoot any one or two of you.” He told her.

Her mind was racing and panicked though she was, she knew that she would not help him bring Charlie with them, not while she still drew breath. “Why Charlie? Why not just me? It will be easier with just me, just one person to keep track of, surely.”

“I need something that I'm sure Shelby will do anything to get back.”

She blinked. “I'm his Omega. He will come for me.”

Mosley's laugh was a snort of derision. “You spread your legs for him, let him open your glands, knelt for him and he never gave you his Mark in return...” He showed her more of his teeth. “I should have remembered his predilection for whores.”

The words felt like more a blow than the slap had. It hadn't been like that. She had asked Tommy not to Mark her. She had felt that he'd wanted to, felt the way his hands tightened on her hip when she offered. He had held himself back for her sake, not for his own... hadn't he? “It wasn't... It wasn't like that.” The words came out almost of their own accord, spoken more to herself than to Mosley.

Mosley raised an eyebrow. “Oh my dear, you musn't blame yourself. Licentiousness is one of the failings of the gypsy phenotype. Of course he wouldn't Claim you when he could have all that he wanted from you without it.” Here his voice soften, became almost conciliatory. “You were only doing what your Alpha commanded, after all. I should have known better than to send him such a fine specimen of the Omega species. You won't be blamed for it, of course not. Your next Alpha will understand that you only wanted to please your Alpha.”

Annabelle's mind felt rigid and cold with fear. She couldn't get it to work properly, couldn't get it to function. A whir seemed to rise in her ears, a clanging sound of failing gears, like the sound of a car engine trying to turn over on a cold morning. She felt black, cold panic threatening to overwhelm her ability to think. She'd heard of soldiers in the trenches of the Great War going over the top, walking out into no-mans-land, preferring death to the burden of it's constant threat. And for a moment, she felt she understood that. How peaceful would it be to stop fighting Mosley, to let herself sink into the terrible dark eyes that held her rooted to her spot. She didn't want Mosley to hurt her again, didn't want to be afraid... if she just stopped fighting him maybe he would take pity on her...

But through those cold black thoughts cut another emotion. Anger felt like the steel knife edge of a ships bough parting the dark depths below, buoying her up toward rational thought. She would not let herself be cowed by this man, nor commanded.

_The back door._ Suddenly the imagine of the back door of the Watery Lane house seemed to thrust itself to the front of her thoughts. It locked automatically when it closed. The first day she'd been in the house she'd accidentally locked herself and Charlie out in the alleyway and Nell had had to let them back in with the key that hung in the laundry room.

Why was she thinking of that?

“Do you promise not to hurt Charlie?” She asked.

“Whether or not any of you are hurt, Miss Grant, is entirely up to you.”

“Alright.” She pressed her palms together to keep them from trembling. “I'll call him in then.”

She wasn't surprised that the other Alpha-- 'Billy' Mosley had called him—went with her as she went down the narrow corridor to the back of the house. But he hung back front he door itself so he wouldn't be visible to the two boys playing in the bright afternoon sun beyond.

She thought about her movements as she went. In her finishing school as a girl she had been taught that every move should be meaningful, every gesture with grace and purpose. So she pretended that this was a ballet—something fine and precise that she had rehearsed. She had never been the girl who froze when the lights came on and the music swelled, she wouldn't let herself freeze now. She raised her hand to grasp the edge of the door, just at the level of her eyes, the other on the frame, standing just inside.

“Charlie! Karl!” She called to get their attention.

They were on the far side of the part of the alley that was delineated by the house. The fort, made of an old chicken coop, looked mostly the same as when they had started that morning. Two faces turned toward her, expectantly.

“Yes, Annie?”

“ _Run_.”

She stepped back and with a definitive motion, shut the door as hard as she could. She braced herself against the door frame and then began to scream as loud as she could for help. It was probably the slam of the door rather than the scream that did the trick. She had only enough time to scream once, not even a word, just a high wail of terror. Billy was on her in half a second, one great hand going around her waist and arms, lifting her easily off the ground and away from the door.

He tried the door handle once and then turned as the front door opened. The Blinder who was guarding the door came in, gun drawn but hesitated when he saw her between him and Billy. The Alpha who held her had no such compunction. He raised his own weapon and though Annie tried to kick back against the man who held her against his chest it was no use. There was a bang just to the left of her face, loud enough to deafen her, and the Blinder flew backwards, brains and blood and bone spraying across the foyer.

Annabelle screamed at the sight. How was it possible for one man to contain so much blood... so much matter. She felt sick but she couldn't take her eyes from the corpse, rooted to the spot. The man who held her took advantage of her shock, the moment where she stopped struggling and screaming. He turned, trying the door handle of the house, rattling the door itself almost off it's hinges.

“Open the fucking door.” Mosley commanded, coming into the hall. “And for God's sakes will you stop her bloody whinging. The neighbors won't give a damn about the gunshot but they might come to find out why she's screaming like that.”

“The doors fucking locked.” The other man swore, clapping a hand over Annabelle's mouth. “Little bitch must have known it would lock.”

Mosley gritted his teeth in annoyance. “Fine. The boy is probably halfway to some fucking Peaky Blinder anyway. Just bring the girl along, will you?”

Annabelle fought like a cat. She tried to make it take as long as it could to get her down that narrow corridor. She kicked out with her legs at the man behind her, making him groan once as her foot connected with her knee. She bit his fingers across her mouth and set to screaming again when he drew his hand back.

But it barely slowed the man down and in another moment they were out on the street. Mosley opened the back seat of a Riley and the Billy thrust her into the back. She scrambled across the seat, intending to make for the other door but a hand caught her leg and pulled her back. Mosley climbed into the seat behind her, pulling her back and flipping her over. He slammed the door behind him and she heard Billy get into the front seat and turn on the engine.

The car wheels squealed as they roared off down the street.

In the back seat Mosley straddled her legs to keep her from kicking him as he attempted to catch the hands that were lashing out at him. She landed a blow across his chin that made him wince but soon enough he caught both her her hands in his, forcing them to the seat beside her head. Without waiting for her to stop struggling he began to pull up her skirt and suddenly, to her horror, she realized that he was aroused. She could feel his erection pressing into her stomach.

His normally carefully arranged coiffure was down in his face and the smell of him in the small space was blooming into something hideous, a cloying, potent odor that made her want to wretch.

“I had, my dear, intended to wait until his smell faded to start your _re-education_ but all this _struggle_ has made me quite change my mind.”

“No!” She shouted, redoubling her efforts to push him off her.

Another slap cracked across her face. This time hard enough that for a moment bright lights exploded across her vision. His hand was sliding up her thigh.

“Don't!” Her voice was raw, desperate and pleading.

“If you just lie still, you fucking harpy this will all be over in a moment...”

“Don't! Don't... I'm pregnant.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: Sorry, sorry I know... a short chapter with an annoying ending but I had to make it like this for the pacing (and by that “pacing” I mean my desire to leave you guys on the worst cliff hanger I could think of lol). But please, please, please leave me a review anyway? I really want to know what you think, what will happen next, just please write me anything! :) Twinelove


	18. Chapter 18

It had been Polly who had told her she carried Tommy's child.

She came one bright Saturday morning to the Watery Lane house unannounced, and found Annabelle in the parlor taking tea. She set a bag of flour on the table. “Give this to Nell to use for the bread from now on.”

Annabelle laughed, raising her eyebrows. “Why, thank you Polly, a very thoughtful gift.”

The older Alpha sat down across from her and poured herself a cup of tea. She ignored it though, lighting herself one of the black cigarettes that smelled of spices that she favored. “It's not for you, it's for the baby. It's got extra iron and vitamins and things so they don't come out deformed.”

Annabelle raised her eyebrows. “The baby?”

“Yes, the one in there,” she pointed to the stylish buckle of Annabelle's belt.

Her mouth dropped open. “Polly, I'm not...”

“Not very,” the other woman agreed. “Too early for me to feel your tits and tell you if it's a boy or a girl. He gave it to you the night he took you to the Garrison, I recon.”

_The night before he left for Glasgow_. Too early even for her to have missed her blood. She sucked in a breath, as if she'd been hit. “Are you sure? I'm not sick in the mornings, nor are my breasts tender... I don't feel any different.”

“The morning sickness will come.” Polly told her, blowing out a puff of smoke. “If it's a boy, it'll cripple you. Shelby men start making your life hell the very first moment they can.”

For a moment she was tempted to discount the notion. She hadn't missed her blood, after all, and she had been careful too, about the pills the doctor had given her. She hadn't missed a single dose as far as she could remember. Except... she had. The day that she'd taken Charlie to the zoo, the day of the shooting and the drive to Birmingham. That day she'd been too distracted to take the pill before she'd gone to bed. She hadn't thought to dig them out of her luggage until the next morning.

Jesus, had that been all it took?

“Polly, are you sure?”

“Of course I'm sure. I wouldn't say something if I weren't..”

“Don't tell him.” The words were out of her mouth before she'd thought them through.

The older Alpha raised an eyebrow. “Why not? Father of the baby, deserves to know, does he not? Besides, you'll start to smell stronger soon enough.”

She put her lips to her fingers and shook her head. “No, it's not that, why I don't want him to know.”

“Why not then?”

Her face twisted. “He hasn't Claimed me Polly.”

“What the fuck does that have to do with it?”

Annabelle gaped at her. She had expected Polly to be shocked that Thomas hadn't Claimed her. After all they were married, he had every right to her Mating gland in the eyes of the law.

“If I am pregnant...”

“You are.”

She bit her lip, not meeting the other woman's gaze. It was so difficult to explain. “If I'm pregnant, I want to ask him to Claim me, before he knows.” She blew out a breath. “I don't want a baby to be the reason he says yes.”

The Alpha woman looked at her for a long moment before replying. “You're so young. I forget sometimes that you young people don't remember the war. His first wife once asked me what he was like before France, but that is a question that wouldn't occur to you, I think.

“You see him and you think this is how he's always been, that there's nothing more you can have of him but the sharp suit, the razor blades and the cold blue eyes. Grace was always looking for more, but you... you don't even know what he is capable.” Polly had cupped her cheek, brushing a thumb along the jaw.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that before the war he loved to dance, and he wanted to work with horses and he was a sweet boy with a kind smile who was the easiest of all of the brothers to love.” Polly wagged the cigarette, as if to brush away something dense in the air. “He was not the kind of man who would let a girl with his babe in her wonder if he loved her back.”

Annabelle had to fight not to recoil at the word _love_. To hear it aloud made her heart constrict so painfully in her chest it was difficult to breath. She had to remind herself to be realistic, not to ask for too much. She didn't need Tommy Shelby to _love_ her, after all, only to allow her to stay with him. Her own love would be enough, wouldn't it? Particularly if she could have his child as well.

Annabelle had swallowed. “Not the kind of man who would have been on the banks of the Cut at midnight, not the kind of man who would have been involved with Oswald Mosley... not the kind of man who would have been in a position to save me, as he did.”

“You don't owe him a Claim, girl, not for that. One act of kindness to you does not make him less of what he is—ruthless... a soldier.”

“He is what he needs to be, what I need him to be... what the world has made him. If someday he is allowed to have a kind smile and love to dance, I will cherish that. But I won't ache for it in the meantime. I won't demand from him something that I know he won't give, knows would be dangerous to give.”

“Jesus but you are young, aren't you? To be so sure.”

Annabelle bit her lip, but forced the words out. “I do love him Poll. And I think I always will.”

“He is a hard man to love.”  
Annabelle shook her head. “Not for me.”

Back in the car Mosley stilled on top of her. For a long moment dark eyes looked down at the girl, crying softly beneath him. She turned her head, averting her eyes from him. Her chest was heaving with the effort of the struggle but she didn't try to calm her breathing. If she had to fight again she relished the chance to catch her breath.

She didn't think the implication was lost on him. A pregnant Omega who was raped by another Alpha almost always lost the baby. Some people thought it was the stress to the Omega's body that caused it, other's postulated that there was something in the semen that was an abortifacient, meant to make the womb ready for pregnancy again.

Finally he leaned forward and pressed his nose against the scent glands at her neck, inhaling deeply. She shuddered at the feeling of his skin against hers but allowed it. She was in early weeks, and the smell of the baby was so similar to hers and Tommy's that it was easy enough to miss. Once she was farther along it would become more noticeable, more distinct as the baby grew within her.

His grip loosened on her wrists and he shifted his weight so she was no longer pinned beneath him. She scrambled back, into the farthest corner of the car, curling her legs up defensively against her chest. She wrapped her arms around her legs and, to her shame, burst into hysterical tears. She pressed a hand against her stomach. The thought of loosing the baby... particularly in that way... the thought was enough to make her sick with fear and anger.

Mosley arranged himself on the seat opposite her. His hair had come out of it's neat coiffure in the struggle and he took a comb from his jacket and smoothed it and the thin mustache he wore. He took out his cigarettes and lit one.

The tears were brief. She didn't want to give the men in the car the satisfaction of knowing how scared she had been, still was. She squeezed her upper arms with her hands, as Tommy sometimes did to gentle her when she was upset. She slowed her breathing and wiped away the tears. She turned her face to the window. They were out of Small Health already and Billy had slowed to a more reasonable pace. She watched the dirty streets of the industrial part of Birmingham roll away past her window.

“Perhaps I picked the right Omega for him, after all.” Mosley mused beside her when her breathing had returned to normal and her tears had stopped.

Annabelle said nothing.

“Does Shelby know?”

“He will soon enough. His Aunt knows.”

She couldn't expect Polly to keep her secret under the circumstances. She had agreed not to tell Thomas until Annabelle had a chance to do it on her own terms, but she hardly expected that arrangement to hold given what had transpired.

“Ah yes, the witch accountant.” He rolled his eyes.

Annabelle said nothing.

“How many weeks are you?”

“Five or six weeks maybe.”

“Early enough to loose it on your own.”

She said nothing.

The car left the city on one of the main motorways heading north, speeding up as they soon became the only car on a long, straight road. Annabelle leaned her head against the cool glass of the window to sooth the pounding in it from the blows she had received.

“Where are you taking me?”

Mosley's mouth twisted into a sardonic mockery of a smile. “Why, to see your husband, of course.”

Annabelle lay on her side, eyes unfocused. She saw, without comprehension, the fine bedspread and the decorative jewelry box on the bedside table. Compared to her last kidnapping, this, she thought with a bitter irony, was at least more stylish. Instead of chucking her the bottom of a narrow boat, Mosley had taken her to some lovely, empty summer home in the Scottish highlands—remote and big and beautiful, perched on the edge of a loch. She hadn't been drugged either, which was a definite improvement. But the heart of it was unchanged. She was still alone, helpless and desperate and no amount of old paintings and fine bedspreads beneath her cheek would change that.

The house was so cold too. The light dress she'd worn for the Midlands climate was little barrier against the drafty highland air blowing off the lake. She wished that someone had thought to light the fire for her, or that she could find some way of getting under the covers with her arms and legs tied as they were.

By the light coming in through the lace-covered windows, she thought it was nearly mid morning. She'd been awake all night, sometimes sobbing, sometimes just staring into the darkness. More than anything, she wanted to know what was happening. It was intolerable, to lie on her side, an object in the game—something acted upon rather than acting. Without even information of the other pieces and there whereabouts.

Charlie, at least, she thought was probably safe. The alley in the back went straight to Arthur's house and on to the Garrison after that. Ada and Polly were probably still in Birmingham. Arthur might have come to Glasgow once someone had found her missing and the dead man in the foyer. Or maybe Thomas had come back to Birmingham, if they didn't know where she'd been taken. Perhaps it was that which made her obsess so about where the others were located. The idea that they did not know where she was.

She shifted off her shoulder and moved her hands a bit. The bonds were uncomfortable. They trapped the blood in her hand and were beginning to chafe. That would have been tolerable. No, they were more than just physically uncomfortable. Mosley hadn't needed to bind her arms. She'd heard him lock the door and the Restoration style of the house with flat windows in a flat exterior made it unlikely she would be able to climb out the second story window. Besides, she had no doubt that Billy was waiting just on the other side of the door anyway.

No, leaving her tied had been part of her _education_.

She shivered.

How was it possible that she contained within her such two very different reactions to being tied up? Tommy had only to pick up the rope and she would feel her slick beginning to flow. Jesus, only the a few days before he had left, she'd made the mistake of watching him tie his own tie. The site had been so arousing she had had to beg him with all the guile she could muster before he'd obliged her with a brutal fuck over the vanity, hands lashed together behind her back with the same article. But these bonds only made her feel ill and furious. Mosley had no right, _no fucking right_ , to tie her up.

She shifted again.

There were two things she had spent the night mulling over. Two small facts that she thought that she knew, that Mosley did not.

The first was about the Home Office and Patrick. Something about Mosley's words in the Watery Lane parlor made her think that he still believed that this was nothing more than a business quarrel between he and Tommy. Whatever Tommy was doing in Glasgow was clearly annoying Mosley and he had taken her as a way to strike back... but she didn't think that he'd guessed that Tommy was not a believer in the cause of the BUF. He had postulated that Tommy had not bitten her for his own selfish reasons. It was true that a Claim, after all, went both ways.

Unlike an Omega who had been Claimed, an Alpha might choose to take on another Omega or a Beta to bed. Mistresses and extramarital liaisons were common enough. There were even polygamist sects of Islam and Christianity that allowed an Alpha to Claim more than one Omega openly. But if he had Claimed her, her scent would remain on him forever, just as his would remain on her. And she would always occupy a little bit of his mind as well. She would represent to him, whether he liked it or no, something that he could not wholly disregard. He would always have the urge to protect her, to feed and pamper her.

There were men who preferred not to allow someone to have such a hold over them.

And Mosley had been right, damn him, when he'd said that she'd given Tommy everything that a Claim meant without the Mark. She'd laid down for him, spread her legs, gotten on her knees... fuck, she'd gotten herself pregnant. 'Why buy the cow when the milk is free?' Like every other Omega in England she'd been told that silly phrase as a girl. Don't let an Alpha put his hand up your skirt before he's put a ring on your finger. Don't let him kiss you if he isn't serious about you. Don't let him get your pregnant if he isn't going to Mark you.

She didn't think Tommy had done it on purpose, as Mosley had suggested because of some genetic predilection for promiscuity (that was utterly ridiculous). No, he hadn't tricked her. But neither had he argued with her when she had stipulated it that first night.

Tommy was a man who valued his autonomy almost above all else. Was it so impossible to imagine that he wouldn't want to be shackled to the silly little girl he'd found in a crate? A Viscountess who cried when she saw gunfire and couldn't light her own hearth; a girl half his age who had been kidnapped twice in a year ... what place did she have in his life? He was a man who had fought in a war by the time he was her age, made his own fortune and charted his own path. A man who wore a gun under his sharp black suit, even in the highest house in the land. What would he want with a pampered and soft flower of the aristocracy?

She squeezed her eyes shut, feeling suddenly sick.

How had she been so stupid as to let herself believe that Tommy might want to Claim her? Because he bought her a set of pearls to fuck her in? Because he sometimes took his time when he kissed her? Because he'd taken her to the Garrison and let her walk Charlie home from school? Jesus, she'd been so naive.

She forced herself not to think about it further, not to let her thoughts stray to the baby. If she thought about that, she'd start to cry again.

Instead she let her mind settle on the other piece of information she had been mulling over. This was a little bit harder to put into concrete words, a more diffuse thought. But, basically, it boiled down to the fact that Mosley didn't know who she was. If he didn't know about the Home Office, that she'd agreed to marry Tommy of her own volition, then he still thought that his original plan had worked. That Tommy had raped her; that afterward she had submitted to him, married him, wore his collar in public. In short, he thought she was a woman who would allow herself to be ground under the heel of a man without complaint, an object that could be transferred between men at their leisure.

_I'm not a whore, nor a concubine... nor an object to be played with by men_.

Tommy had once called her his property when her clothes were off, and she had agreed to that. He had once offered her money to fuck her how she pleased and she had agreed to it. But her clothes were on, and she certainly hadn't agreed to this. And fuck Oswald Mosley if he thought that he'd gotten her into this. It had been her choice to continue on this path. After the night she'd been found, she could have gone back to Scotland if she wanted, running back to her mother's skirts and Patty's protection.

But she hadn't. She had decided, by her own mind, and no others, that she would stay to help Tommy bring this man down. If this was to be the end for her, she would at least know it was her own doing, not Mosley's, that had decided her fate.

She lifted her bound legs and with some effort, managed to kick the lamp on the bedside table hard enough to send it shattering against the wall.

The door opened and Billy came into her field of view. “Do you want a smack, Omega?” He snarled at her.

The tears were not difficult to summon. All she had to do was stop holding them back. “My wrists hurt,” she sobbed. “The ropes are chaffing.”

“Boss said to keep you tied up.”

“Please.” She wailed pitifully. “Please, I can't go anywhere, can I? With you standing outside the door? I just want to get some sleep. I can't sleep with my hands tied and I'm so tired...”

“No.”

It took an hour of loud sobbing through the door before it reopened and Billy came back in. With a grunt he hauled her up in the bed and undid the ropes. “There. Now will you quit your noise before I give you something to cry about, will ya?” He hissed.

She rubbed at her wrists gingerly. “Thank you.” She murmured softly.

It was much nicer with her hands free. Annabelle felt positively cheerful as she washed her face free of tears in the lavatory. She might have taken a bath if it hadn't been for Billy on the other side of the door. He might be in the pay of Mosley but he was an Alpha who had seen her Mating Gland after all and knew she was unclaimed.

She asked for some soup to be sent up. This she poured down the toilet, again afraid it might be drugged. She had asked for it partially to see if Billy would oblige her and partially because she wanted the maid to see her. She had a famous face after all and the more people who saw her and knew where she was, the better. But Billy brought the soup itself and from the quality she began to suspect that they were alone in the castle. She drank some water out of the tap though, preferring to risk a stomach ache rather than anything that might have been put in the juice that was sent for her.

An hour later the door opened and Mosley stepped in. “Why is she unbound?” He snapped to Billy.

The other Alpha shifted uncomfortably. “She was screaming sir, could hear it all down the hall. Wouldn't stop.”

“Then you should have fucking gagged her, now shouldn't you have?” Mosley said, letting the annoyance in his voice turn it to a thin, steel wire. “But never mind that now.”

On the bed he put a large box from a department store in Glasgow that she'd gone to many times before with her mother. “Time to get pretty for your husband.”

“What do you mean?” Again, it was easy enough to let her voice warble with fear, tears forming quickly again.

“I mean,” he drawled, “put on the fucking dress in that box, fix your face, and do as you're fucking told.”

She whimpered. “Alright, sir, please don't hit me over.” It was easy to play the part she had assigned herself in some ways, all she had to do was let the real fear she felt rise to the surface for a moment.

“Well, that's better.”

The dress inside the box was of the highest quality and with it was included powder and lipstick, shoes and some clean small clothes. She put on the dress, a brilliant blue that set off her eyes and modestly cut though it emphasized the smallness of her waist, the roundness of her hips. When she was done she looked every inch the proper Omega Viscountess, except of course the bruise around her eye that the powder couldn't quite cover. Mosley, it seemed, wanted to remind her husband of what she was.

She regarded herself in the mirror when she was finished, then closed her eyes, letting her head fall back. She imagined strong fingers closing around her shoulders, leaning back against broad shoulders. She still had his scent on her... cigarettes, whiskey, gunpowder and power. How much longer would it last, if they were parted? How long would she still be able to smell him on her skin?

“Are you coming for me? Are you coming for me and the baby?” She whispered.

_I'll make it alright, eh, girl_. _I'll make it all alright_.

“Do you promise?”

_You don't have to ask me that_.

She put on her shoes and stepped out.

Billy was waiting for her outside the door and took her down to what she recognized must be the main tearoom. Mosley was seated at the table in front of a very correct tea tray even down to some small tea sandwiches laid beside it. She had no idea where they were getting the food from for, but the three of them, she could swear the house was deserted.

“Sit there.” He gestured to the chair next to his.

When she came forward but recoiled back a step—an unfeigned gesture—when she saw what lay beside the tray: several lengths of rope and handkerchiefs. She did not have to be told what they were for. “No.” The word was out of her mouth before she could consider.

Mosley frowned. “And to think, we were getting along so well just now. Billy, hold her.”

She wriggled away when the Alpha came to grab her. “No, no, I'll sit on my own.”

Mosley considered her as she forced herself, trembling, to sit in the chair he had designated, and to hold her hands forward and let him bind her. She opened her mouth and let him slip the handkerchief between her lips and around her head, tying it tight. He took a moment to consider the effect once he was done. She met his gaze, trying to let only the fear and not the rage show.

“You'll excuse the theatrics of course but I have always had a weakness for the operatic.” He said, with a smile, as if amused by a private joke. “Tea, my dear?”

He poured her a cup, though she could neither lift it nor enjoy it, bound as she was so it lay cooling before her as he drank from his own cup.

Outside she heard the sound of wheels on a gravel drive and Mosley smiled again. “Right on time, ever a man who understood the importance of a timetable is your husband. Billy, go show our guest in, will you?”

When the other man left, Mosley took a pistol from the tea table (strange, she thought, that she hadn't noticed it there, had she become so used to seeing guns since living with Tommy?) and showed her the bullets before putting the cylinder back in place. He cocked the trigger and went to stand beside her. He bent forward to whisper in her ear again. “Again, my dear, you will have to forgive me for indulging my predilection for the dramatic.” As he spoke the words, she felt the cold press of the barrel to her temple.

She knew he could feel the shiver that went down her spine at his words and the feeling of the gun but she couldn't help herself. But that was only a fleeting fear and not the reason that her heart was beating so hard and so fast she thought it might come through her chest. She wanted to see him. Wanted to see that he was alive so badly that it felt like a physical ache in her chest and her belly. And she was afraid for him. Why the fuck had he come here, so far from Birmingham, from his stronghold, from his seat of power.

The door of the room opened and Tommy stepped in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow is this like two whole chapters in a row without gratuitous smut? Is this some kind of novel COVID presentation do you think? I'm going to go take my temperature. Anyway all jokes aside thank you all so much for the generous reviews and please, please, please let me know what you think! I really want to finish this story and we are so getting to the good part but my job is super crazy this month and I need all the motivation I can get to keep writing! Please tell me your thoughts, what you think will happen next and specifically parts that you like about the story. I love it when people tell me specific lines or parts that got some kind of reaction from them!!!!!!
> 
> The other theme that I'm exploring I think more explicitly in this chapter than ever before, and would therefore LOVE comments on, is Annabelle's nature as an Omega. I read and love stories where the Omega protagonists often struggle with their nature, deny it, try to hide it or change it (though usually eventually come to embrace it). Explicitly when I set out to write this story I said to myself that I didn't want a protagonist that wasn't sure of herself as an Omega. In fact I emphasize quite a lot that she is essentially the platonic ideal of an Omega. I think partly I do this because I find it hot (as a quintessential Omega and aristocrat she is more valuable and desirable to Tommy which is a form of objectification that really rustles my jimmies in a good way). But it also makes her an interesting challenge to write and make interesting.
> 
> She is not rebellious, she doesn't want to break out of the role society has cast her in, so her internal struggle is somewhat subtle-- the reconciliation of what she wants with what she has been taught to want and her recognition of herself as an actor rather than an object to be acted on. One of the main ways in which this manifests itself in the story is in the submissive role she takes with Tommy. She repeatedly asks him for/instigates scenarios that result in her in positions of submission and use. And in this chapter she goes through a process of questioning the relationship, which I think is an important part of her development as a character.
> 
> Anyway, /rantover and somewhat without a conclusion because obviously we still have chapters to go on this story but I would be very interested in what you guys have to say about her reflections this chapter on her nature, Tommy and the relationship.
> 
> LOVE YOU ALL :) Twinelove


	19. Chapter 19

For a moment Tommy didn't seem to notice Mosley or anything else in the room but her. He looked at her for a moment, taking in the gag, the ropes, the bruise on her cheek. His eyes were half lidded. Someone less used to interpreting the mask he wore over his facial expressions might have said he was bored, but Annabelle knew it was a dangerous fury he hid in the ice-blue depths behind the long lashes.

But then, he winked, letting the corners of his mouth quirk up, every so subtly. And she felt the cold and squeezing force that felt as though it had clutched her heart since she'd seen Mosley in the parlor at Watery Lane, relent. The familiar clench she felt in her thighs and in her cunt when he looked at her like that made her feel as though something warm had broken open within her. Heat and warmth spread from her sex into her joints and hear head, lubricating the stiff terror that had consumed her.

“Hello, Annabelle.” The low rasp of her voice was like a caress up her spine, making her straighten.

She swallowed, unable to speak.

“You alright, sweetheart?”

She swallowed around the gag and nodded.

“Brave girl.”

Finally he looked at Mosley. “I came along, as requested.” He said. He opened his jacket to show the absence of his usual pistol in the shoulder holster. “And unarmed.”

“Why don't you join us then, have some tea.”

Tommy crossed the room and drew out the chair opposite Mosley.

Tommy reached into his jacket pocket and lit a cigarette. “Now Mosley, you haven't said what you mean or what you want by... all this.” He gestured at Annabelle, tied as she was. He lit the cigarette and took a long drag.

“As the Omega's hands are occupied, I'll pour the tea, since I'm hosting.” Mosley said, pouring Tommy a saucer.

“I thought we were partners, eh. Not very friendly behavior by my calculation. And as I recall, the last time you spoke with my wife...” He took a deep and lazy puff of smoke into his lungs. “I told you that if you frightened her again, I'd take it fucking personally.”

Mosley smiled. “Now, let's not start off with threats. Won't do any of us any good, least of all the lady here.” He let his voice linger on the word _lady_.

“Right. There are only so many times I'll ask, Mosley. What the fuck do you want?”

“What I want... is to remind you of your priorities. This business in Glasgow with boats and river gypsies...” he waved his hand. “Not a priority.”

Tommy sighed. “Rather dramatic way to make that statement, eh? There was never any need to get the girl involved, was there?”

“Oh pish-posh, Shelby! You cannot play the gentleman now, can you? I hardly would have taken her at all if you'd Claimed her. And besides... how was I to know the little filly was gravid?”

Tommy's jaw clenched slightly, making the scar on his cheek flex.

“And how do you know, I haven't Claimed her, eh?”

“I bloody well looked, didn't I?”

Tommy's expression didn't change but there was a whitening of the knuckles that held his cigarette. “You looked at my wife's Mating Gland?”

Mosley waved his hand dismissively. “I've told you before, Shelby, the only thing that is forbidden to men like us... is forbidding. An Omega like her will forget the transgression once you've taught her her proper place, taken her in hand properly. You tell her what to think, what to do, after all, don't you? Tell her to forget.”

“Tell her to forget? That's your suggestion?” His smile was tight and wan. He ran his hand over his face, as if to stop himself from smiling at the ridiculousness of the world. “Would you like to hear my suggestion?”

“Your suggestion regarding what?”

“Regarding how to _handle_ Annabelle.”

Mosley frowned. “I've just told you....”

Tommy cut him off. “Take down her gag.” He pointed the hand that held the cigarette at her. “Take down that gag and those ropes, and ask her if she will forget... ever... what you, Jesus, what we, have done to her.”

Mosley made a hum of annoyance. “And just when I thought we were making progress...”

The gun slid from her temple to the front of her gown, sliding just inside the edge of the neckline almost like a finger between the folds of the feminine sex, except that this made her sick. With the barrel he pulled forth the fabric covering her neck glands to reveal the nearly-healed skin beneath.

“Looks to me almost healed, eh, Shelby? In a week or more she'll barely smell of you. She'll be ripe and ready for the next Alpha who cares to put her on her knees, part those sweet lips, bite her...”

Annabelle moved so quickly it was a surprise almost to herself, though she had been thinking of the moment through since Mosley had put the gun to her temple. But now he had brought it so close to her hands that it was almost easy. She reached up and with a firm, quick movement, grasped the pistol firmly by the barrel and wrenched it from his hands. He had not been holding it properly, more of a teasing, easy grip, or she never would have been able to do it. But he had clearly not been expecting it and it was almost easy to take it from him.

“Thomas.”

She had spoken to get his attention but needn't have-- of the four people in the room he was the only one who appeared to have anticipated her move. He was already reaching out as she tossed it to him, underhand, as she'd learned to do as a girl in netball practice. He caught it neatly in his dominant hand, bringing the nondominant up to flip it over to face the proper way. Both Billy and Mosley seemed to watch nonplussed the entirety of the fast movements as he flipped the gun over, aimed it at Billy, and pulled the trigger.

Blood and brains splattered across Annabelle and the wall and the tea tray in front of her.

She screamed as the enormous weight of the man crumpled from where he stood, taking down the table and knocking her out of her chair. The tea went over with an enormous crashing sound, china shattering across the carpet. His weight fell across her lap on the floor, blood still spurting from the wound in his head over the blue dress and her bound hands.

Tommy had turned the gun to Mosley but as he swung the weapon down, the other man lashed out, hitting Tommy's right arm with all his force. The gun clattered across the floor and in a trice the two men were grappling.

Billy had fallen to the side and taken her with him. The world tilted as she crumpled to the floor under the weight of the dead man. She shrieked again, repulsed by his weight and the blood still oozing from the wound. She struggled for a moment to get out from under the large man, squirming as best she could with her legs and hands still tied.

Finally she managed to kick her way free of the mass and she looked toward the two men who were fighting. Like her, they'd gone over on the floor. Tommy was on top of the other man, delivering blows that mad her bones rattle just to look at them. Mosley's face was a mass of blood and ruined flesh and she knew there was no use in watching the rest of what transpired. She closed her eyes and curled in on herself, fighting the urge to wretch at the smell of blood and the sight of what had used to be a head.

Finally the sickening sound of fists on flesh relented. For a moment there was only the sounds of Tommy's heavy breathing in the room. She opened her eyes and watched him stand, fish the gun out of Billy's lapel and fire two shots into Mosley's head. Again blood and brain and fragments of skull shattered over the carpet. Annabelle felt as if she might faint and the room began to spin around her. She closed her eyes again, glad she was already lying down.

She heard footsteps approaching her and then felt Tommy put an arm under her shoulders and her knees, lifting her easily to his broad chest. He said nothing as he pushed open the parlor door with his foot and went out into the hallway. He took her up the stairs to one of the empty bedrooms, not the one she'd been in before but the first he'd found.

He put her on the bed and crawled in after her. He covered her body with his own, hands running down her face, her arms, her torso and legs, looking for damage. His hands were a bloody ruin from the beating he'd given Mosley-- a mix of the other mans blood and his own from the wounds he had opened on his knuckles, but he seemed oblivious. He brushed away the blood that was already beginning to mat in her hair and he was murmuring soft and low in Romani. It sounded like questions—repetitive words that he interspersed with soft kisses over her cheeks, her eyelids, her neck and jaw. Questions she couldn't answer and didn't understand.

When he came to her mouth the kiss was full of heat, a possessive fire that roared through her body, burning out for a moment the fear and dread that had consumed her for days. He parted her lips and poured into them heat and want that felt cleansing and right. She moaned, arching up against him and opening her mouth, eager to receive him. His mouth on hers was plundering, demanding and she opened for him, eager and willing and warm.

He took a knife from his vest pocket and cut away her bonds, tearing them and then tossing them away as if they'd been snakes. His hands went to the neckline of the dress, tearing it open with a quick, brutal movement. Buttons flew and the fine silk ripped almost to her navel as he pulled it down over her shoulders with one hand as the other pulled one knee to the side to part her for him. He pressed against her, letting her feel that his cock was already hard against her stomach and she groaned.

He pulled the dress all the way off her and then his hands tore at her brassiere, her bloomers and her garter belt and stockings. It as as if he wanted to remove all trace of Mosley's touch from her for he tore at them as if he intended to destroy them. Her own fingers pushed at his jacket, pulling it off him with a frantic need. She pulled at his waistcoat, his watch ineffectively.

“Tommy, Tommy, Tommy, Tommy, Tommy....” Someone ways saying his name over and over again, like a chant and she realized, somewhat surprised, that it was her.

When she was bare before him, he turned her roughly onto her stomach, pulling her to her knees but one hand keeping her chest pressed down into the bedspread. She was struggling beneath him, trying to push back against him but he held her firm. He needed to feel that he could overpower her, almost as much as she needed to feel overpowered. Here was a man, and Alpha, would could fight for her, who would fight for her. And fuck but he was strong. The large hand between her shoulder blades kept her chest to the bed easily. The feeling of being helpless, at his mercy, blanketed her like sinking into a warm bath. The cold dread that had filled her for days melted instantly in the heat of his hold.

She was back under his power, back at his mercy, back where she belonged.

He undid his trousers with one hand, keeping her pinned with the other. He pushed down his trousers and pants. He pushed her legs apart with the same hand, smacking the inside of her thighs until she was spread and open for him. She was wet with slick, enough to drool down her leg and he ran his hand through it, relishing the smell of it, the proof that she still wanted him, still belonged to him.

He didn't have to ask if she'd been raped. The smell of her told him that she hadn't and for that he had no words for how he felt. It was not gratitude, it was not relief... it was rebirth: like having stared into the barrel of a gun that had not gone off, like being dead all over again. _In the bleak midwinter_.

He pushed into her and the sound she made, the feeling of sinking back into that warm, tight tunnel almost undid him. I felt like it had been an eternity since he'd felt her hot walls, the warm honey of her slick pouring over him and the tightness. Fuck, how was she like a virgin every time he took her? _So fucking tight. Just for me. This cunt is just for me._

He took her hard and fast, as he knew she needed. She needed to feel his domination, the sternness of his hand. He knew it as he knew where the parts of his own body were, as he knew when to take the strap to an unbroken filly, and when to offer her a carrot. His strokes were deep, powerful and fast and in her tightness he knew they must hurt.

When he felt her head tilt forward he slid the hand between her shoulder blades forward and gripped her hair, pulling her head up to keep her from Presenting for him. “Not now, girl, not now when I've just got you back.” He ground out between gritted teeth.

He knew better than to think he would be able to hold back if he saw her offer herself to him just then. His knuckles were bruised, red and swollen, covered with the blood of the man who had tried to take her from him. And that bruise on her cheek... that fucking bruise. Even the thought of it was enough to make his hand on her hip clench, tilting her into an angle that made her sob.

The knot, after more than a month of being separated, was enough to make her gasp and cry out when it began to swell. She didn't know how she would take the full width of it without bleeding but the feeling of it filled her still with a bliss she could not describe. She bit her lip and let him hear her wail of pain and acceptance, knowing that the sound of her accepting the pain would please him, knowing her tightness pleased him. He did not slow his thrusts as the sensation became overwhelming, making her take the growing girth of the knot with every thrust.

She tipped over into blackness first, arching up and sobbing against him. When his own crescendo took him it didn't feel like the usual blackness that enveloped him. He pushed into her a final time and felt the knot swell the final amount, locking them together. He was keenly aware of her: soft flesh beneath his hand and surrounding him, the smell of her enveloping him. She was like the sea-- a warm and inviting infinity that he wanted to sink into, letting the water close around him and never releasing him for air.

When he had spent himself in her depths, she lay beneath him, panting and warm and living. He lay on top of her, between her thighs and still buried to the hilt and locked on his knot. He took her head in his hand and lathed his tongue over her neck glands, spreading his scent across them and mingling his own there. He pressed his teeth against the flesh of her lesser glands and sunk his teeth in slowly, savoring the sob and the jerk of her body that it brought forth.

Perhaps he should have asked permission, she had been through quite a lot in the last few days after all, but he couldn't bring himself to. The image of her as she had tried to present and he had prevented her was still too strong in his mind. He had denied himself what she had offered and taking her lesser glands was a poor substitute but he would have to be content with that. Nor did he, as he usually did, settle her on top, while they waited for his knot to go down. Instead he lay over her body, protective and dominating, pressing her into the mattress. Once or twice he brought her knees up, curling her over so he could rut into her cunt a bit and bring them both to a smaller, quaking orgasm. Locked together as they were he could only rock back and forth, but it was enough to make him spurt and her muscles flutter.

Blood ran down from her neck and he lapped it up, careful not to let a drop of it be lost onto the bedspread. He opened it again when the blood stopped running, then again and again. She sobbed pitifully each time but he did not relent.

He shifted to the other side, then back again until her neck was as bad as it had been in Heat. He rocked into her cunt, spurting into her a few more times and wringing out a few more orgasms from her as well. He kissed her too, long lingering kisses that lasted to long and opened up her split lip. But he only sucked at the blood that trickled out.

When her neck was a bloody ruin and her lips were split and tender he leaned back, breaking the last kiss, to look at her. He brushed a thumb over her bruised cheek and swore in Romani.

“It shouldn't have come to this.” He told her softly, this time in English. “I should never have let it get this far.”

She shook her head, tears sliding down her cheeks. “I'm alright Tommy, I promise.”

“I don't fucking care, I don't fucking care if you're alright. It shouldn't have happened to you. I should not have let it happen.”

“There was no way to know that Mosley would do this.”

He said nothing but turned her head to the side again and opened her gland slowly. She came again on his cock as he did it.

Finally, his knot went down again and when it did, he made himself slide out of her, despite her pitiful little mewling protest.

He pulled up his trousers and shirt, not bothering with his pants or vest or any of the usual niceties of his dress. He picked his jacket up from the floor and tossed it onto the bed beside her naked form. “Don't put any of the clothes he gave you back on, not unless you want me to tear them off you and fuck you again.” He told her bluntly. “You wear that until I tell you otherwise.”

Shivering, she took the jacket and pulled it around her naked shoulders. Blood from the bites ran down onto the collar and she pulled her knees up to her chest, wrapping her skinny arms around them.

“I need to go downstairs and make some phone calls. I need to clean this up. Stay here until I come fetch you.”

She nodded. “Alright.”

When he left, she surprised herself by falling asleep. Perhaps it wasn't so strange. She'd been awake for more than a day an a half and after he'd fucked her she'd felt calm, satiated and protected. The smell of him on the bed, the warmth of his spend within her were comforting, calming, like sand beneath the cheek of a shipwrecked sailor. Besides, she hadn't eaten or drunk for a day or more and he hadn't been easy on her glands. She'd lost blood and that alone was enough to make her want to lie down.

She woke to him picking her up again from the bedspread. He put one arm under her knees, the other under her arms, cradling her to his wide chest and lifting her as if she weighed no more than Charlie. She was small enough that his jacket covered her mid thighs even when he held her in his arms, just a little immodest.

She let herself indulge, snuggling against the crook of his arm like a cat, relishing the smell of him so close as he brought her back down the stairs. She could see that there were a few men in the parlor where the shooting had taken place. They didn't look like Blinders. Instead of the sharp, stylish suits and peaked hats of the men she'd grown used to in Birmingham, they seemed more like men her father and brother might know. The Home Office then, that's who he had called to “clean this up.” The door of an unfamiliar car was opened in the drive and he put her in the back, climbing in after her.

He held her against his chest as the car wound through the twisting roads of the highlands. Dressed as she was in just his jacket she shivered in the cold alpine air, burrowing farther against his warm chest until he draped an arm about her, nestling her closer. He said something to the man in the front but his words seemed garbled to her, as if she were underwater. They drove through Glasgow finally and pulled up at the drive of the Grand Central Hotel.

She had stayed at the hotel many times. Her mother liked to stop in Glasgow on her way to London, preferring to break the journey into two days as she found the long train ride tiresome. But somehow the high domed ceilings and marble columns seemed unfamiliar and strange, like something she remembered from a dream.

Tommy hefted her to his chest again and strode across the lobby without stopping to speak with the concierge. It was early afternoon—somehow it was, though it felt both later and earlier—and several of the patrons in the lobby looked up as they passed, though no one remarked on it. They went to the elevator and up to a penthouse suite. There were more than a dozen men in the sitting room of the suite. They looked up when he entered with her , then carefully averted their eyes from her, just as the men from the HO had.

He said something but again, she couldn't quite understand. She knew that he spoke English now but the words sounded strange and unfamiliar as if he spoke again in his mother's tongue. She was so tired she felt she could barely keep her eyes open, and even when they were the world seemed surrounded by a dark rim, as if she were watching a movie in a dark picture house.

He went into the bedroom adjoined to the common room of the suite and placed her gently on the bed. The room was dark and warm but he drew back the covers and slid her beneath.

“ **Stay. You're safe here, Annabelle.** ” The Alpha command tone she understood. She wondered distantly if he even noticed he used it with her now but it felt wonderful. The command felt better than the weight of the blanket settling over her, an enveloping strength that held her fixed in place.

She wasn't sure how much time passed in the dark, or if she slept again, nor could she have named the date or guessed at the time. Then, suddenly, the light on the bedside table came on and Ada was there, bending over her.

“You're alright there love, you're alright Annabelle.”

She tried to sit up a bit but her head swum and began to pound nauseatingly when she did so she lay back down. _Hello Ada_ , she tried to say but the words didn't quite come out.

“Don't try to sit up, there's a good girl.” The other woman stroked her bloody hair, pulled down the neck of the jacket and hissed at what she found. “Fuck, Tommy, you really are a fucking animal, aren't you? The poor lamb, frightened to death, and you go and do that.”

“I don't have patience for a lecture, Ada.”

“I'll run a bath and you lift her in. Then go and fetch us a bottle of whiskey and I'll pour the majority of it down her throat.”

“She's got me child in her.”

“If a bottle of whiskey was enough to stop a pregnancy we'd none of us be here, would we?” She felt Annabelle's fingers, which, despite the warm room were cold and white. “The poor thing is like to go into shock, the way you've treated her.”

Ada ran the bath and Tommy went downstairs to the bar and got a bottle of whiskey and brought it up. He lifted her, taking her out of his jacket and carried her to the tub, putting her into the scalding water. She didn't wince at the temperature change, nor at the whiskey Ada lifted to her lips.

“There, there, love.” His sister crooned, kneeling beside the bath. “You're alright now girl, eh?” To Tommy she turned and snapped, “well? Get out then. Done enough already haven't you, besides, she isn't decent.”

He rubbed his thumb and two first fingers cross his eyes. “I'll be in the front room.”

When he was gone Ada bathed her. She lifted a washcloth to dab away the dried blood in her hair and on her face, from Billy, then her own from where Tommy had opened her neck. She put cream in her hair and brushed out the tangles gently, tipping warm water over the girls head to wash away the cream when she was done.

When she had finished Annabelle was still trembling, though not as badly as before. The flush had come back into her cheeks and the cold pallor of her extremities had receded. And a little bit of will had come back to her. She ducked down when Ada asked her, to rinse away the cream.

“Where is Charlie? And Karl?” She asked, her voice a little hoarse.

“He's safe. He and Karl ran down to Mrs. Maple's house three doors down. I thank you for that, for Karl's sake, as well as Charlie's.” She paused. “You did what a mother would do, to protect them.”

She shuddered. “I only did what anyone would have.”

“What you did was brave.” Ada said, taking her hand firmly. “You saved Charlie and Karl at the risk of your own life. Don't think that it went unnoticed.”

“What happened, after...after I was taken?”

“Tommy went fucking mental, for one. He tore up Birmingham looking for you, then Glasgow when we found out you'd been taken to Scotland. The whole fucking organization is up here, practically. He left Charlie and Karl with Polly and Johnny Dogs and a few others.”

“Polly...” Her voice started and broke. “Polly told him, about the baby.”

She knew the answer, didn't want to hear it, and yet couldn't stop herself from asking. Had she been wrong to think that he had gone through all this trouble to get _her_ back, that he hadn't known about the baby. _Stupid_ , she chided herself, _stupid to worry now about why he came for you_. _Can you not simply be grateful that he did_?

“Aye, she did.”

Ada helped her out of the bath and into a red, warm knit dress. They went back into the bedroom and there was a knock on the door. “There's some girls coming in with a tray of tea and supper Ada.” His voice said through the door.

Ada went and unlocked the door and let in three girls bearing three large trays laden with food. Tommy stood in the door and looked in at her for a long moment but said nothing to her. He had the usual cigarette held between his first finger and thumb with the palm to the ground and he brought it to his lips. Behind him she could see the men, Blinders, drinking and smoking in the common room. He didn't look at her, though she looked at him.

He spoke instead to his sister. Make sure she eats, eh? If you're going to be pouring whiskey down her throat.”

“Do you not want to make sure yourself?”   
He didn't reply to that but turned, shutting the door behind him.

He didn't join her in the bedroom that night. Ada went out, to sleep in her room when she fell into a fitful sleep, but he didn't come in. She could hear the men speaking in the common room of the suite all night between bouts of sleep that had no dreams. It was ten o'clock in the morning, going by the clock over the fireplace and the bright light coming in the window, when he came into the bedroom. She had been asleep, not in her bed clothes but in the knit dress and on top of the covers, but woke when the door opened. She scrambled back against the pillows, thinking for a moment she was back in the castle in Scotland, before she realized who it was.

He paused for a moment when he saw her reaction, as if he might go back out into the common area, but then seemed to think better of it. He stepped into the room and shut the door behind him. He did not approach the bed but instead went to stand by the window opposite the foot of it.

He held a bottle of whiskey in one hand and a half-full glass in the other, that he filled before putting the bottle on the little table beneath the window sill. He was dressed only in his vest and sleeve garters with the pistol slung under his left arm. He still had on his watch chain and his rings. He had dark circles under his eyes and she wondered if he'd done snow to stay up or if it was only the adrenaline left over from the killing he'd done.

He was drunk, more drunk than she thought she'd ever seen him.

“Did you eat?” He did not slur his words as he spoke but there was something about the tone of his voice that scared her more than carelessness would have.

He was angry.

He looked as he had when he'd found her and Charlie cowering in the bathtub after the shooting in London, like he had when Mosley had brought her too him on their wedding night... like he had when he'd seen her first in the drawing room, with the gun at her temple. But she had never seen it directed at her.

Dread, heavy and nauseating as any illness, rose in her throat and her chest, like a weight that could drown her. She swallowed, frozen in place, afraid to move.

“Yes.” Her voice was hoarse and low but it was steady.

“What did you eat?”

“Some of the chicken and some tea.”

He went and opened the covered dishes, looking at what had been taken. “You need to eat more than that, eh?”

“Alright.”

“It's true, isn't it? You've got me kid in you.”

She pressed warm lips together. “You can smell it on me.”

“I need to hear you say it.”

“I'm pregnant.”

He'd asked for the words but they hit him like a blow. His jaw clenched and he straightened, as if he intended to come toward her. But he didn't, and in another moment he seemed to master himself, unclenching his jaw. He fished in his coat pocket for a cigarette which he lit. He ran the hand with the cigarette across his eyes, a tired and frustrated expression replacing the one of tense rage.

“Right. London will be the safest place for you to spend the pregnancy, far as possible from this mess. I phoned your brother yesterday and he'll be here by the afternoon train. I might not be back in London for a month or more but we can work out the details then. You're still early days, after all.”

She didn't have to ask what details he meant: divorce, custody, the particulars of a separation. The fuck at the castle in the highlands had been necessary. He was, after all, Alpha with his scent mark on her, and Alpha who had just killed the man who had tried to take her from him. There would have been no stopping it, on either end. She hadn't fooled herself into thinking it was more.

But still... she hadn't thought he would send her away so immediately. Had she been so foolish to think he might have wanted to keep her with him for a few days?

She nodded. “I understand.”

“I'll order your breakfast first, eh. I want you to eat the lot.”

“Yes, Tommy.”

His face hardened suddenly. “And if I told you to hike up your dress and spread your legs? Would you say 'yes, Tommy' to that, eh, Annabelle?”

She shook her head. “Don't be cruel, Thomas.”

His fist slammed down on the table where he'd put the whiskey, making her flinch. “Don't!” He bit off the word. “Don't... don't tell me not to be cruel. Not when I've just shot two men for you. Not when I've gone to get you back from the fucking devil himself, unarmed and not sure I could even fucking do it.” His voice was a hiss. “You don't know...”

He poured himself another whiskey and knocked it back. “You don't know what I thought about … when you were taken from me. What I fucking imagined... that he was doing to you.”

She was on her knees in an instant, fists curled into balls at her side. “And me? And what of what I fucking imagined? What of what _I_ fucking endured?”

The whiskey glass that had been in his hand exploded across the fireplace, glass shattering across bricks. And he moved so quickly that it seemed to her that she was on her back in the bed in the blink of an eye. His thigh went between her knees, parting and spreading them. His hand was at her neck, not squeezing but letting her feel that it was there, in the same way his hard body pressing her down in the mattress let her know how easy it would be for him to overpower her.

She tensed, overwhelmed and afraid. And in a second he was back off of her. He stalked back to the table and poured himself another drink but he wasn't careful. The bottle rattled the second glass on the table hard enough to make her startle again on the bed. His hands shook. They hadn't shook when he'd shot Billy, or Mosley, or picked her up off the bloody parlor floor—but now they did.

What did that mean? She was too tired and fatigued to think properly.

“Tommy...” She began, reaching for him.

But he only tossed back the whiskey again and then got his coat from the back of the chair where he had left it. He pulled it on and straightened it and in a moment he looked almost normal: like the sharply dressed Alpha that she had lay down with since the night he had found her.

“I'll send in your breakfast.”

And then he was gone.

What happened next Annabelle could never remember in more than a series of disjointed images: the door of the room opening and Patrick stepping in, the countryside going by out of the train window and the rocking thrum of the machine beneath, her mother's tears and arms around her neck on the steps of the house in London... and then she was alone.

She lay on her side in her childhood bed. In front of her was the window and the lawn behind the house beyond but her eyes were fixed, unseeing. Her limbs felt like lead weights, her chest empty and she was consumed by a bone-weary fatigue like she had never felt before. She couldn't remember the last time she'd slept well. Perhaps it had been the night in the Midland, more than a month ago. And yet, she knew sleep would be a long time coming for her.

She ran her hand over the still unremarkable curve of her stomach.

_Not alone, I'm not alone, after all._

And that thought, was enough to be getting on with.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oooof sorry about the whump. Well... sorry, not sorry :) to be perfectly frank. Anyway thank you all so much for the reviews on the last chapter. (Actually) sorry I only punished you in return :( I do really want to hear from you from this chapter too! Please help me finish this story in a timely way. I really want to keep writing but I'm so busy at work and I just need a little help with motivation at the end of the day! Please let me know what you thought and I particularly love it when you respond with lines or parts that stirred some particular emotion in you.


	20. Chapter 20

There were only a handful of people who could be bold enough to knock on the door of the Watery Lane house. And though Tommy didn't particularly care to speak to any of them there was something about the persistent rapping, something that he had known since he was a boy, that told him there was no point in arguing with, nor trying to avoid what was coming.

And there was no one who would answer, if he did not. He'd sent the servants away, sent Charlie to Ada's. All that was left in the house was him, and enough cigarettes and liquor that it would certainly kill him if that's what it took to make him stop thinking about her. And the fucking baby. And Oswald fucking Mosley and the bruise he'd left on her cheek.

It was hard to go down the stairs, much easier to go up but he managed it. He was experienced enough at being stumbling drunk to be almost good at it though, so he made it down without incident. He ripped open the door, cigarette dangling from his lips, blinking against the bright morning son. After so long in the dimness of the house he could barely see in such bright light. But he knew already who was at his door. “Hello, Polly.”

“Jesus Christ it's eleven o'clock in the morning. How much have you had?”

“Counting from when I started drinking, it's past midnight, eh? Very respectable.”

His Aunt huffed, pushing past him into the parlor. She was dressed in her usual stylish fashion with a fur coat and a wicker basked over one arm. “I brought lunch. Hopefully you'll be able to keep it down after so many days of nothing but whiskey and smoke.”

“I'm not hungry.”

“I don't fucking care, now do I?”

She put the basket on the table and opened it, laying out sandwiches and a thermos of tea out on the table. He sat the chaise lounge across from her, leaning back and taking a deep drag, letting the smoke fill his longs. “These look like shit.” He told her.

“I made them myself, you ungrateful ass.” She reproached him.

“Well, that explains it then.”

“Fuck you.”

“Did Ada send you, to right my head?”

“No, I came of my own mind.”

“I'm fine, Polly, I promise. It's normal to celebrate, when I've had a victory, is it not?”

She glanced around at the ruin of the parlor, liquor bottles and ash trays on every surface. “Celebration of a victory, that's what this is?” She sighed.

“I'll eat your fucking sandwiches Pol, but don't lecture me, eh?”

Polly's eyes flashed. “I'm your bloody aunt boy, not your fucking sister, not your fucking brother... and not the little girl that bent over your desk for most of a fucking year only to have you walk away from her and her baby. I'll lecture you if I goddamn please.”

His eyes narrowed. “That's not...”

“She did a good thing because you fucking asked her!”

Tommy kicked the table hard enough that one of the ash trays split in two with the force. “That's why I fucking walked away when I did! Eh!” His voice was hard and tight, furious. “If I didn't know that, do you think I wouldn't have done everything I fucking could to ruin her life? Eh?”

He closed his eyes, suddenly feeling the weight of the fatigue of so many days without proper sleep. He wasn't a young man anymore after all, as if he needed to be reminded of it. He ran a hand over his face, as if that could clear the dark thoughts and lack of sleep. “Jesus, Polly, it's been a fucking month and I'm still...”

“Still, what?”

He opened his eyes. “What do you mean, still what?”

“Thomas, I have no fucking idea what you're talking about.”

He shook his head. “Polly, sometimes I really do wonder if we're all wrong about you and you're some kind of new designation that no one has ever been before.”

Polly snorted. “That's fucking typical of a man, isn't it? Just because a woman can think with more than just her cunt, think it disqualifies us from being a bloody Alpha. There is more too it you know, don't you? Than just the fucking and biting and the lot.”

He took a long inhale on his cigarette. “I know that, eh?”

“Well?”

“Well, what?”

“You fucked her, you bit her—even if you didn't Bite her-- don't you think she deserves to see you? Don't you think she deserves more than divorce papers that the postman hands her?”

“I can't see her.”

“What do you mean? The girl deserves at least to see you, after all she's been through, after all she did for you. She's the mother of your fucking child now, Thomas, or will be in a few months. You can't avoid her forever.”

He let his head fall back, wondering if he was going to start laughing, and if he did, how he would ever stop. “Polly, I'm still in half a fucking Rut, eh?”

He'd felt the Rut coming the morning he'd sent her out of Glasgow. Ada had once told him that the beginning of a Heat felt like coming down with a cold—a flush in the body, weakness and the inability to think clearly. Not so a Rut. Early Rut was in his jaw, his fingers, his chest—an aching, tense feeling as though he needed something to bite, some flesh to tear with his teeth and hands. He could have run flat out for hours and he'd paced the suite of the Grand Central like a caged animal. Finishing the business in Glasgow had been a fucking joy. He had killed most of the remaining Billy Boys himself and even Micheal had known better than to protest, to remind him he wasn't supposed to deal with that side of the business anymore.

He'd only had one other Rut in his life. Usually they were inspired by an Omega Heat between a Bonded pair. But they could be brought on by other things as well: violence and pregnant women he couldn't have, in Tommy's experience. In the days after he had assassinated Henry Russell and knelt over his own grave at the end of the barrel of the Red Right Hand of the UVF, he had taken Grace to Rut. It had taken nearly a week, and by the time it was over, Grace's husband had killed himself.

Back in Birmingham, he had checked into The Midland at first, thinking it was better to avoid the bedroom where she'd slept and her lingering scent. He'd fucked a dozen prostitutes that first week, but eventually he had to admit that only did more harm than good. The smell of them them only made him frustrated and he couldn't be as rough with them as he wanted to. Whatever he had told Annabelle to make her shiver and her slick flow that night at the Midland, he had more respect for working girls than to abuse them. Arthur had suggested he get into the boxing ring but he'd known better than to start a fight with a man he didn't intend to kill.

So in the end, he'd come back to the house on Watery Lane and decided to get drunk. It couldn't last forever, after all, surely. Besides the liquor made sleep a black hole, which was at a relief. In his dreams he was back in the house in the Scottish highlands, on top of her and within her, and he woke just as his teeth finally sank through the thin skin of her gland, his cock too painfully stiff to touch and an empty, hollow feeling in his chest.

Polly frowned. “So you're in fucking Rut. As you've pointed out to me before Thomas, this isn't my element. But is that not a time when sending away your Omega would be the decision of a bloody moron?”

His smile was without mirth. “I almost fucking Claimed her in that fucking house. On some strange bed, with blood still spattered all across her face. And the Rut hadn't started yet, I was still in the soldier's minute, with all my fucking faculties.” He shook his head. “No Pol, if I see her...” He took a deep breath and blew the smoke out slowly. “Well, I know what I'd do, eh? Let's leave it at that.”

His aunt looked at him for a long moment before she pushed the plate of sandwiches across to him. “Have a fucking sandwich, Thomas.”

He let out a little snorting laugh. “Fuck you, Pol.”

She opened her purse again and fished out her clove cigarettes. She lit one and put it to her lips, sucking in the smoke and blowing it out. She bit her lip, considering. “Do you know that it was me who told Annabelle that she was pregnant.”

He frowned. “What do you mean?”

“She was sitting just where you are, when I told her. I put a sack of enriched flour down on the table and told her not to take any more whiskey from you.” She took a long inhale of the cigarette. “And do you know what she said?”   
“No.”

“She said not to tell you.”

His spine stiffened, jaw clenching. Keep his fucking child from him. He'd rip her glands open for the impudence. He'd bend her over his fucking desk and beat her senseless, until she was crying and begging and then far beyond, until she understood the man she was dealing with, what he was capable of. _Teach her her fucking place_. His cock stirred in his pants, hard at the idea.

“Yes, I thought that was how you would react.” Polly said, rolling her eyes.

His breath was a hiss, like a wheel with a puncture in it. “What are you trying to tell me, eh, Poll?”

His aunt's grin was hard and compressed. “I'm trying to tell you, that you should ask her _why_.”

Annabelle was beginning to show. She loved the subtle swell of the of the babe beneath her dresses. It wasn't large enough that she needed her dresses refitted yet, wasn't even so large that anyone else had noticed. But she could feel it, when she let her fingers flutter down over her belly. She'd always been slender so even the subtle swell was noticeable to her. She couldn't wait until the baby quickened and she could feel it move within her.

“Are you a girl or a boy, do you think, sweetheart?” She asked the little curve her. “A Shelby like your daddy, or a Grant like your mama?”

She lay on a tartan blanket at the bottom of her mother's rose garden in the shade of an oak planted by an ancestor so ancient that no one even remembered the name. Her head was pillowed on one elbow and her book lay on her chest as she looked up through the branches of the tree. She thought of blue eyes, black lashes, the sharp flash of cheekbones beneath skin, like a fin beneath water, and black, black hair. Black like coal, black like night, black like despair.

She imagined strong, long fingers trailing over the inner part of her arms, up the tender, delicate flesh of her inner arm.

_You're alright, sweetheart, eh?_

She shook her head, warding off the voice in her head that came all too easily and too frequently these days. She had thought that once she began to smell less like him that the phantom of Thomas Shelby would relent, that she would stop imagining him, but if anything it visited more frequently these days.

“You're showing.”

She shook her head again and opened her eyes. Usually that was enough to dissipate the phantom that she'd alternatively tried to summon and ward off. But when she opened her eyes, he was standing at the end of her blanket, looking down on her. Despite the summer day he was dressed in a sharp black suit. His waistcoat was black as well and the necktie was a blue that made his eyes look like warm sapphires. The gold watch chain and rings matched his tie clip and cuff-links. His hair was a bit longer then she remembered. It was still in its usual style but the sides were more tapered then the severe way he wore it during times when Parliament was in. And this time, she could smell the smoke from the cigarette dangling between his fingers. She blinked again and the vision did not disappear.

She swallowed.

“How did you find me?”

“The maid who showed me in told me where you were.” He said. “Where are your brother and mother?”

“Patty is at work. Mummy has gone to take tea with a friend.”

He gestured with his cigarette around the landscape. “And who, exactly, was supposed to keep me from walking up to you, as I have?”

She swallowed. “It's Belgravia, Tommy. Hardly the mean streets of London.”

“Not good enough, Annabelle, not good enough by half. Not with me fucking child in you.”

She frowned. “Alright. I'm sure Patty will hire guards, if you think that's prudent.” She sat up, folding her legs demurely to one side. She gestured to the tea tray. “I'm afraid the tea is cold, but if you want something fresh, I'm sure that I can ask one of the maids to bring you whatever you like.”

“I didn't come for fucking tea, sweetheart.”

She swallowed. “What did you come for then?”   
Though his expression did not change, there was no nervous licking of lips or adjusting of his hands, the long moment he let pass before he spoke was enough to tell her that he was considering what he said next with great care. “Polly said that you asked her not to tell me about the baby.” His eyes were cold enough to make her blood freeze.

She opened her mouth to explain but found that she couldn't.

“She said I should ask you why.”

“That doesn't matter now.”

“I won't insist, Annabelle. You tell me if you like, and if you don't, I'll go away.”

She bit her lower lip, hard enough to hurt. She looked away from him, shaking her head as if she was in pain. “I can't, Thomas, I can't...”

“Right.” He flicked away the cigarette into the wet grass.

Feet at the edge of the tartan he crouched, like a man trying to coax a wild animal to take food from his palm. He looked at her, now on a level with her, meeting her gaze without flinching. “You're not a whore, Annabelle, not a concubine either. Say what it is you want to say.”

She moved slowly, trembling to her knees. She held his gaze as she did it and he could see tears welling up. For a moment he thought she was preparing to rise to her feet to run and he fought not to grit his teeth. If she ran now the urge to chase would be overwhelming, close as he still was to his Rut. It would be so fucking easy to catch her, pin her, push her down on the ground and remind her that her strength was nothing compared to his, that he could have what he wanted from her. He braced himself against the desire, the thoughts of how good it would feel to pin that little body beneath his.

If she wanted to run, he would let her.

Instead, she let her head fall forward. He wasn't behind her, wasn't inside her, but he would recognize her Presentation position anywhere. All his muscles seemed to tense at once and his cock twitched, suddenly stiffening. “Claim me. Tommy, I want you to Claim me.” She was sobbing.

In a trice he had her beneath him on the tartan, head tilted back and his mouth against her throat. His cock was hard, thrust against the round swell of her stomach and the heat of her sex was not disguised by her thin dress at all. He'd pulled her down the blanket and one strong thigh was between her legs, spreading them and pinning her beneath him. Bent back over her knees as she was it was a vulnerable position. _Helpless_. And with only her loose, summery dress as protection he could feel that familiar, warm, inviting heat against his leg. It would have been easy enough for him to open his trousers, hike up her skirt, push her bloomers aside and sink again into that familiar, warm tunnel.

“Don't...” His voice was rough against her ear, a graveling warning. “Don't say fucking nonsense, that you don't fucking mean.”

She gulped. “Why do you say that I don't mean it?”

He glanced down at her lips, as if he were considering kissing her. But instead he made himself push back, sitting back to kneel beside her. He was still hard in his trousers and he could feel an ache in his jaw that he knew could only be relieved by feeling her glands beneath his teeth.

He brushed a hand roughly over his face, as if that could make his jaw unclench or take away the hard expression that was set there as if in stone. She sat up too, watching him with a wary expression. “Why do you say I don't mean it?” She repeated.

“Listen, I know it can't have been easy to come back to London smelling like you've got my child in you, eh?”

Her presence in London without him would have been a scandal and a blow to her reputation almost bigger than the kidnapping and the marriage had been. It would not need to be said that he had not Marked her, that they were getting divorced. It would seem to the world as if he had cast her aside. And though her mother's friends would whisper what a shame it was, what a cad he was, there would always be some part of them that suspected she was at fault. Had she not pleased him well enough? Submitted prettily or quickly enough?

Mosley had been right, about the world seeing her as either a whore or a wife, after all. But it wasn't a reason to take this from her. It wasn't enough to justify this final conquering of her.

He had to force himself to get the words out. “But you don't have to offer me this. If you want to stay with me, in the house, we can work something out.”

“Stay in the house... but not in your bed?”

“No, sweetheart, not in my bed.”

The words hurt. It was like touching a too hot pan and she almost recoiled at them. The idea of being surrounded by things that smelled of him, back in a place where she had been so happy, but unable to have him back, unable to regain what she had had... like Tantalus she would be, forever reaching for something that receded away from her. Sitting beside him at the dinner table but unable to touch him, smelling him always but never having him within her... she felt as if her mind were churning, like a car wheel stuck in the mud, spinning against something that had no traction or grip.

_But why does he think I don't mean it?_ The thought came forward in the swarming mass of nauseating images like unexpected sand beneath the kicking feet of someone drowning.

“Why do you think I don't mean it, Tommy?”

The change in his expression was subtle, a certain hardening of his features that let her know that the question made him angry. “Because you're you, sweetheart. Because you're a viscountess, your mothers daughter, nineteen and a fucking virgin when I met you. You're not... you're not meant for me, eh?”

“Not meant for you? Tommy, I was made for you. Do you think I can imagine a life without you? Do you think that I can imagine a life without your smell, without your kisses, your belt... you knot.” She blushed at the last.

“The next Alpha...” He began.

“There will be no next Alpha.” She cut him off.

He shook his head. “You've very young.”

“I'm yours Thomas, want me or no.” She swallowed. “I wanted you to Claim me before I knew about the baby. That's why I asked Polly not to tell you...” She couldn't help but let the tears well up. “I didn't want... I didn't want you to say yes because you felt obliged...”

She felt as if something were breaking open in her chest, warm and wet liquid that she was trying to contain with her hands but was slipping through her fingers. She hadn't meant to tell him, hadn't wanted to, ever. But he'd asked, hadn't he? He'd wanted to know. And she couldn't bring herself to lie to him.

“You think that I didn't want to Claim you before I knew about the baby?”

She swallowed. “I offered... many times.”

“You also asked me not to, the night we first met.”

“I gave you everything you could want, without a Mark.” Tears welled up. “Why would you want to burden yourself with me, when I would have given you anything you wanted without it?” She sobbed. “If you want the truth Thomas, know this. I would be your wife, Claim or no Claim. If you want me to bend over your desk, suck your cock, wear your collar... you need only ask. You think I did that for anyone else but you? You think I thought of anyone else but you when you come in me? When you beat me?”

She surged forward, pressing her lips to his with a desperate passion. Her fingers naked around his neck, pulling her down on him and he responded in kind. His fingers wrapped around the base of her neck, making her arch against him and tilt her head back, giving him a better angle to take her mouth. He bit her lip and she parted for him with a groan. She scrambled forward, into his lap and his free arm went around her waist to clasp her ass, lifting her up until she wrapped her legs around his waist. She was a squirming thing, trying to worm her way closer, into his jacket, pulling at the buttons of his shirt, desperate to get closer to him.

He lay her back on the tartan blanket again, covering her body with his. He plundered her mouth, opening her wide and laying claim to her lips. The hand over her throat tightened as she yielded to him, his fingers curling over the glands there. The other hand skimmed over the soft swell of her belly and up to her breasts, cupping on in his hand while his fingers played over the tip.

“You want my Claim?” He asked, letting her up for breath. “Since when?”

“For months.”

“Since when?”

“Since forever, I think.   
“Since **when** , Annabelle.”

“I don't know _when_! Since the night you put the collar on me, since we mingled our blood at our wedding, since you took me down to the kitchen and fed me tea and fucking marmalade. Maybe I always wanted it—before I even knew you! How am I to know?” Her voice was high and ragged. Her pupils were blown wide, almost black with lust. “I asked Polly that day not to tell you I was pregnant because I wanted the chance to fucking beg you for your Mark for my own sake, and not the baby's!”

Beneath him, she turned her head to the side, tears welling up and eyes closed. “I didn't want... I didn't want to feel that you owed it to me...”

He slumped forward, breathing hard against her neck. The little fucking fool. He would beat her ass red for this. The little darling. He'd buy her a diamond so big it would make her wrist ache.

“You want me Mark, girl? Answer me.”

“Yes, Tommy.” Her breath was hot, like a kiss, against his collar.

He made himself push back again and this time it was easier. Much as he wanted to, he couldn't just flip her over on a picnic blanket in the back garden of her mother's house and open her gland, tempting though that mental image was. He needed to figure out a strategy for what came next, and he had always been better at strategy than self denial.

He looked down at her. “If you say yes now, it's a Rut.”

Her eyes widened. “But I'm not in Heat.”

“No, but I am in Rut. Or will be once I get your clothes off. I can go back to Birmingham for a month or so and let it die all the way down if you like and then come back to you. But if you say yes to me now, I'm not going to be able to stop myself.” His voice was flat, matter-o-fact. He curled a strand of hair behind her ear, pushing it back out of her face and letting his hand trail her jaw. “It wouldn't change how I feel about Marking you, eh? I can take you later though, when I'm more in me head. When I can be more gentle for you.”

His expression was as open as she'd ever seen it. He met her eyes with his own impossibly blue ones and she could tell he was serious. He really did mean to get back in his car and drive away if she asked him.

This man was an Alpha, her alpha, who fucked her and beat her even when she sobbed, who she had seen kill two men and had killed many more, who liked to feed her marmalade toast, who could kissed her gently when he wanted to and liked to see her in jewels he had given her. A ruthless man, who always offered her mercy.

But she was afraid of his Rut. She would be a fool not to be. Even an Alpha more tender than Thomas could be savage in that state. Particularly without her Heat it was going to be a brutal ordeal. But she was his Omega, wasn't she? He owed her his Rut, even if it would be painful, it was her due. Besides, she had never asked him for restraint yet... and she didn't intend to start now.

“Don't hold back, Thomas.”

“You want me to do what I want with you?”  
“Always.”

His hands slid beneath her, one behind her shoulders, the other behind her knees. In a moment he had lifted her and was carrying her toward the house. He strode through the house without hesitation, ignoring the shocked look of the maid that scurried out of their way. A butler opened the door for him and then the car and he deposited her in the passenger's seat.

“Where are we going?”

“Home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, okay I know it's short for how long it freaking took. But I wanted to be perfect and work has been freaking insane. Please, please please, please, please let me know what you think! Thank you so much to everyone who reviewed, it means SO MUCH to me and certainly keeps me writing and coming back to the story and the characters. It makes me think about the characters in new ways and certainly inspires me to write more!
> 
> As ever I want to know particular moments of parts that made you get goosebumps or that you liked. Did you like Polly knocking some sense into him? Did you like the confrontation between Tommy and Annabelle? Did you like that eventually it's Annabelle who has to push for what she wants, admit to what she wants to bring them together? I struggled with writing Tommy this chapter because he is behaving somewhat uncharacteristically outside of his own interest, at least on the surface. But for me there is something more profound driving him than just wanting her to get into the physical position that in the fucked up little world I've created means he has the legal right to Bite her. Part of Claiming her, part of conquering her, for him is that she has to want it. She has to want to submit to him, to want him to own her for it to mean anything to him. He wants a complete victory rather than a hollow one, which seems like it is very much in character for him. But still... please let me know how I did :D
> 
> I want to hear what you think about Tommy and Annabelle's interaction. I also have an interest in exploring a bit of the legal aspect of Tommy's “right” to her and how much power he holds over her in the next chapter and would be very interesting for any suggestions regarding that. I am also curious about what you guys expect from the Rut? How will it be different from the Heat at the beginning of the story? Anything in particular you want to see?
> 
> PS: a special thanks to reader Ashwini whose suggestion of including an explanation of what Tommy was saying in Romani to her in the Scottish house will be featured in the next chapter! I did not think of including an explanation of that, but I really love where it took me. Thank you!!!


	21. Chapter 21

He took her to the London house. He hadn't the patience for the drive to Arrow House. Nor did he want the company of the army of servants it took to keep the place running. Since he had been out of London for more than a month, there was a skeleton crew of a single maid and manservant who saw to the house when it was unoccupied.

He opened the door of the car and took her again, lifting her to his chest. “I can walk you know, Thomas.” She said, with a little giggle.

“You're barefoot. Besides, I'll tell you what you can do, eh?”

The front door was opened for him by a very surprised looking Martha. “Mr. Shelby, Mrs. Shelby, we weren't expecting...”

“No, I didn't call ahead, Martha. “

He was halfway up the stairs by the time the maid pulled herself together enough to call after him. “Shall I put together some tea for you sir... perhaps an early lunch?”

“Tea is fine. We will take it in the main bedroom. Bring some whiskey too, will you?”

“Yes sir.”

He put her on her feet when they were in the room, closing the door behind them. He crossed to the bathroom and went to the tub. He sat on the edge of the smooth porcelain side and turned the knobs for hot and cold water until a steaming level of water began to rise within. He tested the water with a hand, making sure it wasn't hot enough to burn her.

When he went back out into the bedroom she hadn't moved, standing just where he had deposited her and looking around the room as though she had never seen it before. She had one hand clasped to the opposite elbow, a protective gesture but one that seemed designed to make her seem smaller, weaker, more vulnerable. She didn't flinch back when he approached but he could tell she wanted to. Already his scent was beginning to rise, being in such close quarters with her, and though he could smell her own slick beginning to flow in response and her heart beginning to beat faster, he could tell she was afraid as well.

A promise to be gentle would be hollow, an insult to her.

He took her chin between his thumb and forefinger, raising her face to meet his. He looked down at her, a flush beginning to rise in her cheeks and her pupils beginning to dilate. “If you say stop, I'll stop. You understand that, don't you?”

She swallowed, then nodded.

He let his hands drift down to clasp her shoulders, holding her steady for a moment. Then his fingers curled in the neckline of her dress and with a single quick jerk, he tore it open. She gasped at the sudden violence of the movement but did not move to cover herself as he tore it from her body and let it drop to the floor around her like petals around a flower.

Jesus, she was more beautiful than he remembered. The swell of her stomach that he'd seen under the dress was beautiful, a smooth curve curve of pale flesh that he intended to explore thoroughly in the coming days.

“Take off the rest.” He commanded.

She blushed as she slid down the bloomers and removed the brassiere, letting them fall to the floor in her dress. Her stockings she had left on the tartan cloth at her mothers house. He clasped her by the hips, running his thumbs over the swell of her stomach and then up the curve of her ribs to brush over the tips of one nipple. She gasped, arching against him pleasingly.

He wanted to push her to her knees and open his trousers. Trap her between his body and the door and bury his cock in her throat. It had been far, far too long since he'd felt the desperate little squeeze of her throat when he went too hard and too fast for her to accept him, heard the sound of her chocking as she tried in vain to accommodate him and saw those tearful, obedient eyes turned up toward him.

But she smelled wrong. She didn't smell like him, like his home. She smelled of her brother, her mother—perfume and unfamiliar soap and the myriad of other Alphas she might have briefly come in contact with since they parted. And he knew better than to take her to bed smelling as she did. He would be rough enough with her as it was. If she smelled like she had touched another Alpha, smelled of anything but him, he didn't know what he would do.

He took her by the hair, threading his fingers through the locks and gripping tightly, pulling her forward. She came, stumbling, as quickly as she could as he took her into the bathroom. She gasped a little bit but didn't resist as he pushed her down until she sat in the water.

“Don't come out until you smell of nothing but scrubbed skin, eh?” He told her.

“Yes, Tommy.”

He went back into the bedroom, closing the door behind him. He took off his jacket, folding it over the back of a chair. He took off his watch, cufflinks, sleeve garters and tie, putting them in a little tray on top of the dresser. He slid out of his waistcoat so he was left in only his shirt and trousers. His suspenders he took down from his shoulders, letting them hang about his waist. He stood at the dresser and fished his cigarettes from the waistcoat. He lit one and took a moment to put the image of her naked body, cradled in warm water, out of his mind. He needed his wits about him for a bit longer, at least.

Martha came in with the tea and whiskey. He let her arrange the service, which he suspected they both knew would go unused, and light a fire, as he poured himself three fingers of the amber liquid.

She glanced up at him shyly when she was finished. “You and Mrs. Shelby will ring again... the next time you'll be wanting a meal, then?”

She had brought a rather large jug of water he noticed and instead of the usual delicate sandwiches she had brought some summer sausages and hard cheeses, fare one might have brought on a picnic. He made a mental note to reward the girl with a pay raise when this was all over.

“Yes, thank you, Martha.”

She turned from the table where she had left the tea set and went to the door to pickup the ripped dress and discarded underthings that lay there. “You'll be wanting... that is you'll be wanting me to send the kitchen boy home for a few days, won't you, Mr. Shelby? He's the only Alpha in the house.”

“Yes. Send him home with his full wages. There will be another two Alphas coming to stay however. I'll want them to take turns at the door, the one off duty can sleep in one of the downstairs bedrooms.” He told her.

“Yes, sir.”

He went to the jacket he'd left on the chair and took out his wallet. He held out a fifty pound note. “For the groceries and the like. And,” he waved the hand that held the cigarette, “and the trouble.”

She blushed and took it. “No trouble at all, Mr. Shelby...” She hesitated. “It's good to see Mrs. Shelby again.”

“Right. That will be all then.”

When the maid was gone, he went to a desk near the window and picked up the telephone. He called Arthur first, to have two Blinders sent to the house for protection—men he'd known for years. The smell of them nearby would put Annabelle on edge, make her want to keep close to him, keep him pleased and happy with her. But for him the familiar scents standing guard would be a comfort. And besides, he had meant what he said about her brother being a fool not to guard her more closely. Mosley might be dead but there were a long list of people who might want control of a woman who carried his child.

When he was assured that the two men he had selected were on their way, he put down the phone. He finished his whiskey and poured himself another before he picked up the receiver again.

“Put me through to Patrick Grant, House of Parliament.” He told the operator.

“Yes sir, right away.”

There was silence on the line for a moment, the phone rang twice and then the receiver was picked up. “Patrick Grant speaking.”

“Patrick, this is Thomas Shelby.”

He could almost hear the spine of the other man straighten through the phone. “Mr. Shelby. What is this concerning?”

Tommy cleared his throat before he spoke, rolling the cigarette in his fingers but not bringing it to his lips. “I've taken Annabelle. She's with me at my home in London.”

There was a long silence, broken only by the faint crackle of the telephone line.

In that pause the bathroom door opened again and Annabelle stepped out. She was dressed in a silk robe with a floral print that she had left there months prior. Her hair she had pinned up but some strands clung to her neck, damp from the steam of the bath. Her skin was flushed and pink from the heat of the room.

“She... she agreed to go with you, I presume.” The man on the phone said finally.

“Yes, she came of her own will.”

From the furrow on her brow he could tell that she had guessed who he was speaking to on the phone. Her mouth opened, as if she intended to say something but thought better of it.

“And you... intend to keep her this time, do you?”

The tense, accusing nature in his voice made Tommy want to reach through the phone to throttle the man. His knuckles on the phone tightened, whitening.

“Yes, I intend to keep her.” He said, voice as tight as his grip.

He snapped his fingers once, indicating the carpet in front of him. She blushed but didn't hesitate or pretend she didn't know what he wanted. She came forward and knelt at his feet, just the way he had taught her he liked: her knees parted, hands flat on her thighs and her face tilted up towards him, chin against his thigh.

Her brother leg out a long sigh. “The law would say that you have the right to her, my mother would say we should thank you, for taking her back. But I can't help but think that you've left her once before... who is to say that you won't leave her again?”

“As you say, I have the legal right to do as I like with your sister.” He knelt and deftly undid the belt of her gown, pulling it off her shoulders so it pooled about her, leaving her naked before him. Despite the warmth of the room and the crackling fire her nipples hardened, from chill or anticipation as he stood again, towering over her. “And as I've said, she came with me willingly. I don't need to ask your permission and I'm not. I've made this call as a courtesy to you only.”

The silence on the phone seemed to stretch on for an eternity. He stroked her hair absentmindedly, tilting her head back so she looked up at him. The strands between his fingers were softer than silk. He cupped her chin with his hand, sliding a thumb across plump lips.

“A contact of mine at the home office told me that you went to get her in the highlands with little real consideration for your own safety. He said it was a courageous act to go fetch her. But then you let her come back to London, smelling of your child but clearly without you, without your bite. So forgive me if I find your conduct... confusing to say the least.”

“I've told you all you need to know, that your sister came of her own will. As I said, I made this call as a courtesy, to let you know she was safe. And not to come look for her.”

“Not to come with the police you mean? To your house?”

He fought back the urge to sigh. He liked Patrick, as much as he could like a man born to his money, but he had seen the threat coming. Middle class people and their relationship with the police... it was never ending.

“And what is it, exactly, that you intend to tell the policeman you talk to has transpired? That a member of parliament has reconciled with his wife? That a girl who has me child in her, will soon have me Claim on her, doesn't belong in my house?”

“You are not any member of parliament, Mr. Shelby. And she is not just any Omega. Her name has been in the papers, the story between you is well known.”

“Be that as it may, I have the legal right to do with Annabelle as I please, as you have just said. There is nothing about my past or hers that changes that. And more importantly, I've just told you that she wants to stay with me, which means that there is nothing in this world or the next that could stop me for having her.”

He took a deep drag on the cigarette but was sure to meet her eyes as he said it. “Oh and Patrick, have your mother to send over the chain from Bassange. Tell her I intend to have Annabelle _leashed_ properly this time.”

He put down the receiver.

After the kidnapping, the separation from him and the continuation of her pregnancy he suspected that the leashing chain would be a comfort to her, a reminder that her Alpha had control of her once again. More than that, it would be visible proof to the Alphas and Omegas of her class that she had reconciled with Tommy, that he had renewed his claim on her, something more easily discussed over tea than the collar of bruises he intended to leave at her neck and wrists. The slender little loops it made around her wrists and ankles would be visible in all but the most conservative dresses, and the fact that he had struck out the clasps would not go unnoticed.

The shiver that ran through her body, strong enough that he could feel it against his thigh, told him that he had guessed correctly.

Besides, the last time she had worn it, it had been before he had allowed himself to bind her. He had not fully explored the uses of the chain to render her helpless. He would take her downtown to the fancy jewelry shop where some Omega jeweler would strike out the clasps and then he'd bring her back here to explore the various positions it offered at his leisure. Her belly was still small enough that he cold put her on it comfortably and bring her ankles up to her wrists until her back bowed and her knees had to spread to accommodate the position.

“Like the thought of that, eh? Like the thought of being leashed by me?” He asked.

“Yes, Tommy.”

“Let's see if you remember how I like to be thanked.”

“Yes, Tommy.”

He took her by the hair again but did not raise her to her feet. Instead he brought her, shuffling on her knees to the low couch near the fire, where Martha had set out the tea. But instead of settling her on one of the seats beside him he sat and pulled her between his legs. She looked up at him and the look of eager expectation nearly undid him. She sat up and began to reach for him but he shook his head.

“Ask for permission first, Annabelle. Where are your manners?”

She bit her lip. “May I...?”

“May you what?”

She blushed. “May I please you with my mouth, please, Tommy?”

“The last time you did I think you called me sir, didn't you? Let's hear it like that, eh?”

Her blush deepened. “May I please you with my mouth, please, sir?”

He shook his head. “I don't think I'd liked to be pleased with your mouth. I think I'd like you to suck my cock. Ask me for that.”

“May I suck your cock, please, sir.”

“Since you asked so nicely, yes, Annabelle.”

He stroked his thumb over her bottom lip, playing with it as a cat might play with a mouse. “Do you know what the difference is? Between pleasing me with your mouth and sucking my cock?” She shook her head, mouth still open, allowing him to do as he liked. “Cock sucking sounds as though I'm going to end up fucking your face. And I think I am going to fuck your face.”

“Yes, sir.”

She slid her hands up his thighs to the belt, opening it slowly, reverentially. He had been hard since he'd seen her in the garden, caressing her belly, but now his cock was twitching, aching to be inside her. When she carefully pulled down the trousers and pants to free him already he was weeping from the head.

He leaned over to the side table where the whiskey lay and poured himself another glass. She waited for him to return to sitting straight before proceeding. She leaned forward, intending to take him into her mouth but was brought up short again by a shake of his head.

“Slowly, girl. I want to savor the time I'm still in me head enough to be half gentle with you.”

She nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“Hands behind your back, eh. I want to see nothing but your tongue on my cock.”

Dutifully she clasped her hands behind her and leaned forward, giving his cock a slow, long lick. He shivered at the sensation as she pressed a gentle kiss to the weeping tip, blotting her lips with the glistening precum before returning to licking his shaft again.

He held out for as long as he could but finally he took her head in one hand and guided her forward until her mouth settled on his tip. He groaned, fighting the urge to thrust his hips up into the warm, inviting tunnel of her throat.

“All the way down, Annabelle.” He commanded.

She gagged when he breached her throat, out of practice, but did not pull back. She pushed forward, eyes never leaving his face until her lips rested against the fine, curled hair at the base of his shaft.

“Stay.”

She looked frantic at the command, her throat spasming in fear and eyes wide. But she held herself there, not making him use any force in the hand that still rested gently on the top of her head. When he let up off him a moment later she gasped, sucking in a breath and licking her lips, panting on her knees.

But when he guided her forward again, she came without resisting.

Down she went again and this time it was worse, tears forming in her eyes when she gagged against him but again she overcame herself and held herself where he wanted. He didn't even have to command her to stay, she just let him put her way he wanted her with his hand.

“I'm going to knot your throat, you know that, don't you?” He told her as she looked up at him through a veil of tears.

Her only answer was to swallow against his cock.

When he let her off this time he withdrew his hand, picking up the whiskey and bringing it to his lips to sip. “I want a slow pace and you'll take me all the way with each stroke.” He told her. “You can breathe at the top but don't come off of me completely, I want some part of my cock in your mouth until I till you otherwise. Do you understand?”

She nodded. “Yes, Tommy.” She panted.

She did as she was told, setting up a slow, steady rhythm with the bobbing of her head. She slid down to the hilt up until her mouth was wrapped just around the head of his cock, sliding her tongue across it with her tongue flat, just as she knew he liked. He took the cigarettes from the pocket of his trousers and lit one.

“When I finish with this, I'll put my hand on the back of your head, and fuck your throat.” He told her, taking the first drag deep into his lungs.

He tried not to rush the cigarette, to draw out his pleasure, but in the end he put it aside far before he might have otherwise and took her head in his hands. She gagged, but didn't resist as he began to move, thrusting his hips up into her mouth.

He felt that familiar tight pressure in his stomach, at the base of his cock as it began to swell. He was going to cum in her again. This little Viscountess who let him get her on her knees and take what he liked, he thought he'd lost her, thought she wouldn't let him Claim her. But now she had his baby, his Claim on her the next time she had her Heat, and sooner than that he'd havecome down her throat.

He tilted his head back and let the world fade away into the familiar warm, inviting void of cumming in Annabelle. Nothing felt so good. When he pushed her head down to lock his knot behind her teeth she came willingly, generously. He pushed past her teeth and his cock began to pulse. He met her eyes as he filled her with a roar of satisfaction. The world exploded into warm pieces.

For her own part, Annabelle couldn't take her eyes off him. She had forgotten how the usually controlled visage slipped, how his features became suddenly softer, warmer. Tommy Shelby was a man who was always in control of everything, most of all himself, except in those brief moments when he let her take him within her, take his seed. In all other moments she belonged to him, but in those moments she imagined that that he belonged to her.

For all of his power, the authority that he had over his world, he let her undo him in this way. It was her who kept him safe when she had him in her, _her_ who gave _him_ refuge and safety, instead of the other way around. And he wanted her, desired her. She had never noticed before all the ways he showed her that he did: the way his fingers always brushed a lock of hair back around her ear as he let his hand slide from the back of her hair, the way he ran the corner of his mouth twitched up just slightly when he said something he intended to shock her sensibilities.

When his eyes opened again there was something too that she'd never seen before and she swallowed in fear. His Rut was on him. He was already hard again in her throat, even now he seemed ready to cum again.

He looked down at her and wiped the tears from under her eyes, then ran a hand again over the top of her head and pushed her down for a few short bobs until he came again in her throat. She gagged, breathing hard through her nose in little, panicked gasps but he paid no mind to that. His eyes were dark, pitiless. “Your cunt is wet for me, sweetheart. I can smell it.”

She nodded as best she could, tied on him as she was.

Usually when he knotted her throat he did not try to keep himself hard for very long but in his Rut he was less merciful. He held her head with both hands and when he felt himself beginning to soften either instructed her to run her tongue along the bottom of the sensitive, swollen knot or pumped himself into her throat again until he groaned and her mouth was flooded with the warm, salty taste of him.

But, after nearly an hour it seemed, the smell of her cunt began to entice him to use her in a different way. When his knot had gone down enough to slip past her teeth and he took her by the hair, guiding her off. She gasped, swallowed, licking away a mixture of her saliva and his cum from her lips, bending to lick the rest off of his still half-hard cock. Her lips were red and her pupils were wide enough that only a bit of blue was visible around them. She licked at his cock again, almost dreamily, with a reverence that took his breath away, as if she were doing something nearly religious.

He let her clean him, licking up the mess with a careful attention. When he was clean, he tucked himself away in his trousers. He bent and took her by the arm, pulling her up into his lap to kneel over his still-hard cock. She squeaked a bit at the rough handling to get her into position but arched beautifully as one hand slid up her back, with the palm at the base of her neck and settling her wet core against him. Small as she was, even sitting like that he still had to bend down to kiss her, sweeping his tongue along her bottom lip, tasting his spend on her lips. She opened her mouth to him, yielding as ever. With the hand not at her neck he slid up one thigh, parting her sweet lower lips to slide between them. She gasped, groaning and arching hopefully toward his fingers.

He slid his fingers across her cunt once but did not oblige her by setting up a rhythm.

“Oh Jesus, please, Tommy... please, Sir.... please, Mr. Shelby... please....”

He took the tip of one nipple into his mouth, smiling at the desperate edge to her voice and the way that her hips rocked against him. But he did not intend to please her with his hand. So instead his hand slid beneath her knees, sweeping them to the side until he held her bridal-style in his arms. He stood then, carrying her to the bed.

He put her down so she sat at the edge of the bed. “Don't move, girl, I'll put you where I want you.”

He went to his dresser and opened it. He took out the box of soft ropes that he used to bind her and came back to her. He knelt and opened the box, selecting a rather long coil that rested neatly within. He took her thighs in his two large hands and brought them together such that her knees and ankles were together. He took the length of coil and began to work, wrapping it first around one thigh and then the other just at the mid thigh. The effect was such that she would not be able to part her legs.

She shivered. He wanted her tight.

Without the ability to spread her legs she would have no relief from his knot. And after so many months apart it would be like taking him again for the first time. The sensation would be overwhelming even if he were restrained with her, which she doubted he intended to be.

He looked up at her, blue eyes as icy as she'd ever seen them—the eyes of a wolf, cold and predatory. The long lashes belonged to a choir boy, so incongruous on the face of a man tying her legs together to make her a tighter fuck. Her sex clenched painfully at the thought of it.

_If you say stop, I'll stop. You understand that, don't you?_

Even now, with his Rut opening up, she knew it was the truth. He had held himself back for her before, hadn't he? The night on the banks of the Cut, the afternoon when he'd been furious over the newspaper article, their wedding day in the back of the car... and in the Scottish castle, blood spattered over her face. He had shown her over and over that she could trust him, could take his word.

“You alright, sweetheart?” He asked. But his hands never stopped their deft movement of lashing her legs together.

“Yes, Tommy.”

When he had finished binding her thighs he turned his attention to her ankles which he did in the same manner. She held out her wrists to be done next but he shook his head. He stood and stripped out of his shirt and pants.

She swallowed when she saw his cock again, eyes flitting up to his for a moment to let him see the little flicker of fear in them. He smiled. “Not as if you haven't had your attention brought to it recently, Annabelle.” He reminded her. “I fit it down you throat didn't I? And believe me I intend to fit it in your cunt.”

“Yes... sir.” She managed.

“Do you intend to be a good girl for me, eh?” He asked. “Push back on your Alpha and let me fuck you as I like?”

She nodded.

“Say it.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Yes, sir, what?”

“I'll be a good girl, sir. I'll push back and let you fuck me as you like...”

“You'll take my cock, eh?”

“I will take your cock, sir.”

He took her by the hips and moved her up the bed until she was in the middle and he was knelt over her, his knees on either side of her hips. He bent and kissed her, pressing her back against the pillows. The kiss was not gentle, he parted her lips with a ruthless thoroughness, plundering the warm cave of her mouth. His hands ran down the sides of her thin ribs, the curve of her stomach and hips, dipping only briefly between the sweet lips below to tease her.

Then he took her by the hips and with one firm movement, flipped her onto her stomach. He knelt over her still, pressing her into the mattress and leaning low to whisper in her ear. “You want that I should fuck you, eh, Annabelle?”

He took her arms and thrust them in front of her, gripping the pillows with a desperate firmness so she stretched out before him fully. “Yes, Thomas, anything.”

He pulled her hips up so she was on her knees in front of him. Her chest he pressed down into the mattress, arching her back, emphasizing the natural lordosis of her spine. Slick was drooling down her leg and he ran a finger through it, bringing it up to her cunt and allowing the finger to slide in. He groaned and how tight and hot she was.

“Jesus, sweetheart, if I hadn't tasted your virgin's blood myself, I'd swear you still were one.”

Her only response was to push back on his fingers, desperate for more of the stretch of them within her. “Please... Tommy... please....Alpha....”

He took her ass cheeks in his hands and opened them as one might a peach, exposing the delicate petals of her sex fully to him. He bent an licked a broad stripe up her parted folds, making her gasp and writhe at the sensation. He had intended to clear his head a bit with the prolonged cock sucking, hoping to come to her a little bit more in control of himself, but it seemed to have done more harm than good to see her choke on his knot. He was harder than he could ever remember being and he wasn't even inside of her yet.

He pumped himself twice, more of a ritual than a necessity, like rolling a cigarette over his lips before lighting it. Then he lined himself up with her opening.

He paused for a moment, trying to memorize the sight before him: Annabelle bent before him, ready to give any part of herself he chose to take. He could see the Gland at the base of her neck, still unblemished and the thought that she remained unMarked made his hands tighten on her hips, hard enough that she squeaked in pain. But she didn't move, didn't adjust herself out of the exaggerated position he had arranged her in.

The angle of her hips was extreme. Small as she was compared to him and with the way he had positioned her he would be able to use his weight behind his thrusts. Not that he would need to to overcome any resistance she might offer but he wanted her to feel almost as if he were above her, holding her down with his body when he took her.

Slowly, he pushed into the warm tunnel offered to him.

He let his head fall back in pleasure as the thick head of his cock breached her entrance. Beneath him the girl groaned, hands gripping the expensive bedsheets tighter.

“Tommy...” Her voice was high and panicked, pleading.

Some part of him... very distant and faint, wondered if he had miscalculated, if she would be able to take him. Had he pushed her too far? Had the ropes or the angle been a miscalculation and she would fall to pieces? Jesus he only had the head of his cock in and she was already starting to hyperventilate.

But she felt so fucking exquisite. The walls of her cunt were as warm as a fire and soft as velvet and as he pushed forward they squeezed, fluttering against him as he pushed in. He gripped her hips hard and sank into her slowly, letting her feel each inch fully as he penetrated her.

When he was bottomed out in her the shudder that ran through her body was intense, a little involuntary movement that caused her muscles to clench around him and her hips to shake beneath his hands.

“Tommy.... you're so deep in me...” She sounded dazed, drunk with the thought of it, and almost disbelieving. “I didn't know... I didn't know...”

Her words turned into an incoherent wail as he began to move within her: slowly drawing himself back until only the head rested within her and then thrusting forward.

He took her slowly at first. But he made sure each stroke was one she felt, burring himself to the hilt every time. She clenched on him each time he fully breached her, a little involuntary jolt as if he had touched some raw nerve within her. He held her at first with one hand on her back, pressing her chest into the bed to keep her helpless and her hips at the exact angle he wanted. But as he built up speed and his knot began to swell, he needed to bring the hand back to grip her hips. True to her word she had been a good girl for him, clenching on him and letting him fuck her as he wanted. But with his knot beginning to swell she couldn't hold herself against the new pressure to get the knot inside of her.

With her legs tied together she was too tight to take the knot. She whined, pushing back against him in a mixture of panic and frustration. She wanted him in her, despite the fact that the sensation of him within her was overwhelming. She wanted to take him fully, to please him fully, at any cost.

“Keep your chest against the bed, sweetheart.” He commanded. “I want you at this angle, eh?”

“Yes... yes...” She gasped.

But she obeyed.

He gripped her hips with both hands, anchoring her still, as he pushed the swollen base of his cock fully inside of her.

Her head snapped up and she let out a noise that was almost enough to make him cum: a noise of desperation and fulfillment. This was submission. He had never seen it more clearly that she would let him do as he pleased.

“Tommy... I...”

_I own you._

He opened his mouth to say it but his breath stilled in his throat as her head tilted forward.

_Presentation_.

He hadn't expected it. Not like this. He had thought to Mark her during her next Heat. Most Omegas would offer only during that time. The fact that she had outside of her Heat before he had always thought had to do with the position of insecurity that she had inhabited, married but uMarked and desperate to be so. He had not expected that she would offer in his Rut, not now that he had told her that he intended to Claim her eventually. That she would offer him a Claim just then, when he had her in such a vulnerable and uncomfortable position already, was unfathomable.

A better man would refuse her, he told himself. Hell he had taken her as he had, legs tied together and so deeply, precisely because he hadn't Claimed her. He had needed to see that she would bear this for him, take him so submissively because of the provocation her unMarked gland. But now the little thing wanted to give him both. She wanted to give him the tightness of her cunt, the vulnerability of her position and let him Claim her.

She would never willingly take another Alpha to bed once he had bitten her there. She would never be able to carry another Alpha's pup to term. She would smell of him, and him alone, until her dying day.

A better man would refuse her....Let her have this moment in her Heat.

But he was not a better man.

One hand slid along the curve of her hips, up her torso to lay at her throat, gripping her tightly enough that she went slack. His other hand still held her hips up as he continued to thrust into her but shallower now. He kept the widest part of his knot just at the entrance of her cunt and move it only a few centimeters, keeping her stretched. The feeling was incredible: the grip of her was tightest just there and he could tell by the little grunting noises and the way the muscle was trembling that the feeling for her was intense.

He bent forward and blew a soft breath over the Gland that she had offered him and she shivered, gasping.

“Ask me one more time, Annabelle.”

“Please, Tommy, Claim me.” Her voice was hoarse and high, a begging so sweet that something deep within his chest clenched even as his cock twitched at the same moment.

He licked a broad stroke across the gland and then sucked it into his mouth. She cried out and tried to push back, to sink him a little bit deeper into her but he held her still, denying her. The taste of her was like water on the tongue of a man dying of thirst. The richness of the pheromones in the gland were what he had been wanting since the first day he'd seen her, tied and out of her mind in that dirty shipping container: the very most concentrated version of her scent—what flavored her slick and her glands was in the blood just below the thin skin. Everything that was Annabelle exploded across his tongue—her warmth, her softness, and her strength.

Here was a woman who could take anything he could give her, who could submit to him fully but would submit to no other. Here was the little thing who took morsels of food from his fingers and had thought to throw him a gun at the peril of her own life. Here was the girl who had knelt in St Jame's church and promised to obey him, begged him to tie her hands, not to hold back but who only cried once the shooting had stopped.

And finally, he let his teeth close, sinking through the thin skin that was the last barrier between them and in an instant both of them were cumming. He pushed his hips forward, sinking into her fully as his knot swelled the final bit that would make it impossible to remove and her muscles clamped tight around him. Warmth and blackness rolled over him, that familiar blanket of pleasure descending over his senses.

Annabelle felt as thought she had stepped into some depth in the blackness behind her eyes that she had never known, never expected. The profoundness of the pleasure was nearly painful, as if it had the power to transform, to tear the flesh from her bones and remake her into something new. She might have been afraid, like someone who has stepped into deeper water than they expected, except that for the first time, she was not alone. In the darkness and warmth that felt as though it might go on forever, was Tommy.

She could feel him there with her, within her.

The cold, immutable strength of his will felt like a hand, pressing down on something right at the core of her, holding her still and safe with him. She had finally let him inside and now he had control over something that was more profound, more vulnerable than her physical body. His strength rolled over her, blanketing her and consuming her.

When her orgasm had subsided, he was still coming within her. She could feel the warm spurts of him and the jerk of his hips. He was licking the gland, the bite that was there was still bleeding sluggishly. The enzymes in his saliva would help it to heal, though she doubted somehow he would let it before he enjoyed it again.

She didn't have long to wait. No sooner had he finished coming in her than he bent and bit her again, sending them both back into that warm blackness together again. She gasped, arching and clenching on him.

Already her scent had begun to change, mingling with his. She had smelled of him before but she could tell the difference. Now he was within her and she would never not smell of his Claim on her. _Own. Fuck. Claim. Worship. Dominate_. She could feel what he wanted from her through the new connection that had opened between them, almost hear it, like his voice in her head. She could see how she looked to his eyes too. _Small. Warm. Plaint. Fuck her. Take her. Protect her. Bite her. Keep her on her knees with my pup in her belly. Show the world that she submits to me_. He wanted to close her teeth in her throat, close his hand over it, to control the very breath she took.

He rocked in her cunt and she could feel how pleased he was when she came to another shaking orgasm. He arranged beneath him, on her knees with him still nestled in her cunt and she knew that he liked the way she came placidly, letting him move her as he liked.

He bit her other glands, almost perfunctorily. He opened her neck first on each side, turning her head almost gently to access the glands there. Then he took her hands, raising her arm behind her and forcing her to arch her back to bring the wrist to his lips. She cried a little bit as he did it but he took little notice of that.

_You're mine now, Annabelle, mine to do with as I please, eh?_

“Yes, Tommy.” She answered the question that he hadn't spoken. “I am yours.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wellllll I kept one of the promises I made this morning when I was replying to all your comments. Surely this counts as extra steamy no? And I am dying to hear what you have to say about it? Did it meet your expectations? Did you like it? As ever I particularly love it when you point out the specifics of what you like and what you want in the coming chapters.
> 
> I didn't write in the part where they talk about what he said to her in Romani which was requested by Ashwini but it will come, I promise! I have a very specific way in which I want it to come up and I think it will fit better later. Plus the emotional charge of this chapter was already pretty intense lol, I couldn't stuff it all in, Tommy's head (an probably cock) would explode. And honestly I didn't want to dally getting the chapter out... go to bed woman!
> 
> Also, I thought I was almost done with this fic. I had planned to end it after he Claims her but I think I have a few more things to say about them TBH. And by that I mean I started to write an exchange that happens in the days after the Claiming and I really, really like it. I don't want to do too many spoilers but I want to explore a little bit like some of the way in which their relationship shifts now that they are really Bonded. Specifically I want to explore the changing expectations that Annabelle and her milleiu in society have for both her and Tommy now that she is Claimed and pregnant. I hope that I don't offend anyone lol because the D/S aspect of it gets a little bit more intense given how fucked up the world I created for them is. I think it's super hot (obviously) and I hope you do too but like.... hmmm. I will update the tags as they become relevant.... that's all I want to say for now. Please, please, please @ me with any suggestions or requests! I've really enjoyed kind of collaborating with readers on this fic. It has certainly added some elements I would not have thought of!!!


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DISCLAIMER: The most important take away from this chapter (and this probably should have gone at the front of the previous chapter), I am not recommending trying ANY of the things that Tommy and Annabelle are doing at home in general but PARTICULARLY not if you are pregnant. If you want to try some BDSM stuff and happen to be pregnant, more power to you, but talk to your doctor about it first for advice. Some of the things in this chapter are like, a super bad idea, and explicitly wrong and some of them I have no idea if they are a bad idea or not. I did some research but like very minimal and am not going to share any of it with you because again, I do not want you taking ANY of this as safe.

After a while, it was difficult to remember the sequence of things. The distinction between hours and day and night became more faint, as did the distinction between their couplings. Sometimes it seemed that Tommy was never not within her, that he tried to start fucking her again almost before he'd stopped from the time before. It was impossible to describe the way in which he wanted her, the consuming nature of him. It was as if she were too close to a flame, past warmth and into the licking, destructive heat itself.

She learned quickly though that her sobs only spurred him on.

She lay on her stomach. He had piled up pillows beneath her hips until he could kneel behind her comfortably and he was taking her with strong, sure strokes. He had her hands at the small of her back, lashed together. Her shoulders ached from the position and her cunt was raw. Each thrust was strong enough to drive the breath out of her along with a low, huffing sigh of a confusing mixture of pain and pleasure.

_Before I'm too out of me head to be gentle with you_.

She knew what he meant now.

Still, when his knot began to swell and he spurted within her she came, a pitiful little clenching orgasm that made her moan into the pillow. Her legs twitched and shook but the rest of her was too tired to move much. She couldn't lift her head off the pillow. At her hips his hands tightened hard enough to bruise again the abused flesh and she felt him fill her again with his seed.

But when his knot came down enough to slide out of her again however, he was hard again. He didn't even reposition her, just began again, thrusting into her with slow, brutal strokes.

“Clench on my cock, girl, make it good for your Alpha.” He punctuated the command with a blow to her ass, making her clench involuntarily.

“Yes, Alpha.” She squeaked.

When he bottomed out in her the next time, dutifully, she tightened herself on him, despite the fact that it was painful for her. Behind her, Tommy groaned, “that's a good girl, good cunt, just for me.”

“Yes, sir.”

That _sir_ that had crept in, there was no deny that he liked it. The obedience and deference it promised and the posh little lilt of her accent when she said it made his blood pound. He had told her to call him that bent over a bed on the night he'd paid for her cunt. What did it mean that she had never stopped? That she still considered that she had been bought by him? That thought too made his hands tense on her hips. He wanted to own her, wanted to possess her.

But, eventually, there was a lessening of the tension in him, the need in him. As in her Heat there were periods in Rut of relative lucidity to allow the Alpha to feed and tend to any injuries that they had inflicted. Otherwise, the Omega might not survive.

She was tied on his knot, straddling him, her cunt raw from what he'd done to her and her breasts and neck a ruin. She looked worse than she had during her heat. Her lips and nipples were red and chapped from his attentions and her eyes were watery and red. And now she had that little swell around her navel. The flatness of her stomach had given way to that delicate little curve. And fuck but her breasts. They were beginning to swell in preparation already, and even more tender and responsive than he remembered. Her hands were tied at the wrists in front of her now with a thick length of rope.

She had been tied for so much of the heat that her wrists and ankles both were raw and chaffed, despite how careful he had been in selecting the softest ropes and wrapping them several times each time to distribute the force.

He had one hand, sliding lazily between the curve of her hips up to the swell of her breast, occasionally thumbing the little nipple to make her clench and flex on his cock. He was buried so deep in her, enveloped by her warmth and tightness. He slid his hand up, running it over the newly bitten Gland and reveling in the way it made her shiver.

“My fucking property, eh?”

“Yes, Tommy.”

“My baby... and my Bite on you now, girl. You belong to me.”

She moaned and he felt the little clenching of her cunt around him. “Anything you want, sir.”

“Tied on my fucking knot. Where you belong.”

“Where I belong.” She repeated. He guided her hips and she obeyed, rocking on him until she moaned and wrung out another orgasm from her tired, limp little body. “Where I fucking belong. Just here. Nowhere else.”

“I don't even have to tie your hands, eh? To take what I want. You know that, don't you girl.”

“Yes, I know that.”

“Only to amuse myself, to see you displayed for me.”

“Of course, if you wish it.”

There had been nothing he denied himself in his Rut. She had knelt between his knees as he had hand fed her, giving her sips of water or whiskey and bites of chicken and cold new potatoes that the servants had brought them. She had taken his belt, his hand, and the lash of the cane. She had sucked his cock for hours, until her knees were bruised and her lips split and raw. When she had been to tired to participate he had held her or tied her in the position his proclivity dictated. She had hung, dangling by her wrists as he fucked her.

She had ridden him until her legs ached and she was sobbing for the release of orgasm, one of this thumbs playing lazily over the little nub at the crux of her at just the right pressure and frequency to keep her achingly close but not to give her satisfaction. And when he finally did allow them both to tip over into satisfaction she had felt as though the oblivion she found was without depth, that she might never come back from it.

When he did allow her to sleep it was usually with him knotted within her, sprawled over his chest. He required little sleep himself in the state of Rut and lay awake smoking and watching the soothing, rhythmic rise and fall of her chest. The little rosebud of her lips parted sweetly in sleep and her cheeks were flushed pink. Occasionally he would rock within her, bringing himself to another small spurting orgasm within her. Sometimes she came quietly in her sleep, sometimes she was too exhausted. When he did need to nap for the occasional fifteen minutes or so a day he put her on her stomach, hands tied behind her and his body covering hers, cock thrust into her from behind.

He had been right about the smell of the other Alphas downstairs. She did not stray from the bed except to use the restroom, which she did quickly, returning to him immediately to nuzzle against his chest and squirm into his arms again. When Martha came in with a meal for them the first time she had scrambled back behind him, clinging to his chest from behind and terrified to have the door open. He hadn't insulted her by reminding her that she knew well enough that the men were Blinders, men he trusted and employed. It wasn't anything rational within her that feared them, nothing that could be reasoned away.

Instead he had taken her by the hair and bent her forward over his shoulder until her forehead was pressed against the broad muscle of his chest and her neck was exposed to his lips. “You belong to _me_ , Annabelle.” He had told her before opening the gland at her neck again.

The little shiver and subsequent slackening of her limbs let me know that he had done right to gentle her.

And after Martha had left he had fucked her from behind and reopened her Mating gland for good measure. By the time he had finished with that and he had settled them on the couch by the food, him sitting and her kneeling between his legs, he had been hard again and fucked her mouth for an hour or more before cumming down her throat. The Shepard's pie had been cold by the time he fed it to her from his hand, kneeling between his legs, but she hadn't complained. She had licked and sucked greedily at the juice that ran down his fingers, taking the bits of lamb and carrot and crust he selected for her.

He ran his thumb over one nipple, still tender and red from kisses, the Necklace of Harmonia and even a few lashes from the cane. She groaned, clenching on him involuntarily, tilting her head back against the sensation. But she didn't protest, didn't ask him to relent. The feelings of his hands on her was welcome, even when they brought pain.

She had thought of his hands many times in the weeks they'd been apart: the scars over his knuckles, the light dusting of hair over the backs and prominent veins, but most of all how large they were, how easily they spanned her waist and held her where he wanted her. The small band of gold she'd put on his finger what seemed like so long ago was still there and somehow she didn't need to ask if he'd taken it off in the meantime. But the warmth of them was something to which memory could not do justice. It flowed into her like a panacea, his warmth, making her feel giddy.

“What are you doing?” She asked, fighting not to blush.

“I just want a chance to look at you again, eh?”

“And... what do you see?” She couldn't help but let the nervousness in her voice show through.

He leaned to one side to fetch the packet of cigarettes he had left on his bedside table. She made an embarrassing groan and felt a little gush of slick go down one leg at the way his cock shifted in her. He leaned back and lit the cigarette, studying her for a moment.

“I see a girl whose birthday I missed.”

She laughed. “So you see I'm growing old, is that it?”

He ignored her. “Bought you a fucking horse, I did.”

She laughed. “A horse? I won't be able to ride in another month or so.”

“I was quite drunk. Now I think it was the wrong thing though. Next year it will be a diamond as big as your first.”

She trailed her bound hands over the scant black hairs that were scattered over the center of his chest. “Missed your birthday as well though, haven't I? I didn't get you anything at all.”

“You've given me enough already.” He ran his hand over the taught skin of her belly. “You're ten weeks, if Poll is right.”

“That's what the doctor said. Does Polly know if it's a boy or girl yet?”

“If she does, she hasn't told me.”

“Is she really going to feel my tits to tell?”

He shrugged. “How should I know? She and Grace didn't have that kind of relationship.” He paused for a moment, then said. “You heard the heartbeat then?”

She nodded. “Last week. The doctor said it was good and strong. He said I have nothing to worry about, that everything seems to be progressing as it should.”

She looked away, trying not to remember the details of the doctor's visit. It had been difficult, to be examined without him present. Patty had come (she couldn't be examined without an Alpha present) and he had been kind about it. But she'd been trembling and in a cold sweat when the doctor had her bring up her dress under the blanket across her legs for modesty so he could examine her stomach. The heartbeat though, that had made it worth it all.

Tommy's hand flashed up, catching her by the chin. “Eh? What's that look about then?” His voice was soft, almost gentle, but beneath her she could feel that all his muscles had tensed.

She gasped. “It's... it's nothing...” She babbled.

“Did someone hurt you, eh, girl?” His grip tightened, hard enough to hurt now on her jaw.

She shook her head, unable to speak. “No, Tommy, it's not that, it's that I didn't like to go without you... to be examined without you. That's all...”

He relaxed back beneath her. “The doctor was correct though, eh?”

“Yes, very. I just... that is I don't like to be touched by others, particularly when you aren't around.”

“No one will touch you girl, without my permission.” His fingers gripped her hips. “But you need to be examined again, for the sake of the baby.”

She sighed, shifting on him. “I know. I know... I just, promise me you will be there?”

His lips quirked and he leaned over to take a sip of the whiskey on his bedside. “Sweetheart, I've killed everyone who has touched you without my permission. You think I intend to stop now?”

“And the baby?”

“And the baby.”

He felt her legs open and she spread wider, allowing him to sink even deeper. He groaned, pulling her hips down over his thick cock. “You like that, eh? To hear I'd kill for you and our baby.”

“Yes.” She admitted. “I like to hear that.”

He slid his hand up her waist to the base of her neck and pulled her down so she lay across his chest, her head tilted so his teeth were against his glands.“It's because you know it's true, isn't it?”

He turned her over, drawing a surprised squeak from her lips, and fucked her for a spell, rutting into her until he came.

When his Rut had broken, he took her to the bathtub and ran them both a bath. He poured himself a whiskey and smoked while she lay against his chest. She was boneless and limp in the water, her body mottled with bruises in the pattern of his fingers and bites. He shifted her to the other side so he could put his arm around her, alternating the drink and the cigarette with the other. He ran a thumb over her Mating Gland beneath the warm water, then let it trail down to her hip, sliding across the swell of her belly.

“Mrs. Shelby.”

She turned, looking up at him and smiled. “Mr. Shelby.”

For a few days after the Rut, she stayed in the bedroom.

It wasn't uncommon for an Omega to stay confined for up to a week after a Rut. Biology texts books wrote long paragraphs about the newly-pregnant Omega needing sleep and to keep off her feet from the health of the baby, but really, it was for the Alpha that it was done. An Alpha, fresh out of Rut, did not take kindly to the idea of not knowing where his Omega was. And thought he felt guilty about the restriction, he had to admit that he wouldn't have tolerated it if she had wanted to leave. Even once his head had cleared there was some part of him that was unwilling to let go of the idea that she should be beneath him, in his bed, ready and waiting for him whenever he chose to take her.

He did call for the Doctor. Annabelle had resisted, insisting that she felt fine, that she was sure the baby was unharmed. But she had relented when he'd bent her over her vanity and fucked her hard enough that one of her bottles of expensive lotion had cracked in two. The refusal so close to his Rut, particularly of something he felt was protective of her, had proved to be too much of a provocation for him.

“Who says who can touch you, eh, girl?” He had snarled in ear, hips snapping into hers hard enough that she would have a line of bruises across the top of her thighs where they met the vanity.

“You, sir!” She had replied when she was able to gasp in enough breath for the words.

“You think I'd let anything happen to you? My fucking property and with my kid in her, eh?” He had been nearly shouting.

“No, Tommy, no!”

He had knotted her again but when he had been soft enough again to slide out of her he had kept her bent there and drawn off his belt. Rarely did he spank her after he had come but the resistance was provocation indeed. Already he could feel himself hardening again. In the mirror he could see that her eyes were wide, black with lust and fear. She could see that he was genuinely angry.

“Do you want mercy, Annabelle?” He asked, voice cold.

She pressed her lips together, then shook her head once, closing her eyes and bracing for the blow. She had taken the belt well, lips pressed together and eyes closed, tears only beginning to leak out during the last few strikes. Her ass red, crisscrossed with angry red lines form the edge of the expensive leather. She sobbed when he pushed back in, fucking her with slow, deep strokes.

He took the belt to her again the next morning, before the Doctor came, to put her in the proper submissive mood for the visit. He had her bend over the edge of the bed and pull her knickers down for him, lifting her skirt up, head buried in the duvet. When her sobs turned ragged and pleading he relented and took her by the hair, pulling her down to kneel at the foot of the bed. Already her eyes were watery with tears but when he opened his trousers with his free hand, her mouth opened dutifully.

He had taken her throat without mercy, trapping her head between the bed and his hips so she had no choice but to accept each of his thrusts. His hand on the back of her head sometimes brought her forward that last inch so that her lips met the skin of his abdomen, wrapping around the exquisitely sensitive skin of his knot.

“Are you going to be good for me, girl?” He asked, knowing full well she could neither vocalize nor nod with the amount of control he was exerting over her head and his cock fully seated in her throat.

He tilted his head back, feeling the familiar tightening in his stomach and pushed in, cumming down her throat with a roar.

“I will be good, Tommy.” She murmured when he allowed her to slide off him. Already she was cleaning him off, pressing soft, wet licking kisses to his cock and lapping up the little bits of cum that remained on it. “I promise I will be good.”

She was true to her word.

The doctor knocked at a little before the appointed time of two in the afternoon and Martha let him in, showing him to Tommy's study. “Mr. Shelby.” The doctor shook his hands. “Dr. James Reynolds, at your service.”

“Pleasure to meet you, Dr. Reynolds.” Tommy fished in his coat pocket and drew out a cigarette, lighting one and offering the packet to the physician who took one gratefully. “Tea, or something stronger?”

“Much though I appreciate your offer, sir, but I'm afraid I haven't the time for pleasantries. I had a full slate of appointments this afternoon before you called yesterday, I'm afraid.”

“Very kind of you to make time for it. Annabelle was reluctant to be examined by anyone at all. But since you've been her family's physician for many years, I thought she might be more comfortable with you than with a stranger.”

“No doubt, no doubt. Very sage of you, sir. And as you said, it's no trouble to squeeze in such an old acquaintance. I've known Annie since her very first fever when she was less than a month old in fact.”

“As I said, very kind of you.”

Reynolds nodded. “You said yesterday on the phone that you took her to Rut, eh? Any... specific concerns I should be aware of?”

Tommy cleared his throat and took another drag of the cigarette. “No, no specific concerns. I... that is I did not take it easy on her, I'm afraid.”

Reynolds raised an eyebrow. “And this Rut... it was not precipitated by her Heat, you mentioned?”

“It was not.”

“You were wise to call, sir.”

Tommy nodded. “Right. Shall I show you to her then?”

Reynolds nodded. “By all means, lead the way.”

Annabelle stood when the two men entered and Tommy could tell she was fighting the urge to take a step back from the Beta who followed him in. But all she said was, “good afternoon, Dr. Reynolds. Thank you so much for seeing me on such short notice.”

The Beta smiled. “No trouble at all, my dear. Sit there on the bed, there's a good girl.”

He put his case on Tommy's writing desk and crushed out his cigarette in the little dish there. He took out the tools of his trade: stethoscope and a band he wrapped around her arm to take her blood pressure. She sat on the bed as directed and let the doctor take her pulse, blood pressure, look inside her mouth and press a stethoscope to her chest. When he covered her legs with a blanket she tensed.

“ **Annabelle**.” The warning growl in Tommy's voice was enough to make her muscles relax, almost as if he had his teeth already knit in the back of her neck.

She took the hand Dr. Reynolds offered and allowed him to lay her back on the bed and pull her dress up to expose her stomach. He felt the stomach and listened for the heartbeat with a small horn.

“The little one sounds just as he should.” He told Tommy. He hesitated for a moment. “Should you like her examined from below as well? It's not necessary, I don't expect to find anything this early along. But if it would give you peace of mind...”

Tommy shook his head. “No. Not if you think it unnecessary.”

“Very good, sir.”

He stood from where he had sat beside her on the bed and went to wash his hands in the lavatory, speaking to Tommy as he went. “She looks as well as can be expected, given the circumstances, I think. She is a little dehydrated, I believe, so make sure she drinks a beer with each meal. She can skip breakfast if she puts up a real fuss, but she should have one with at least lunch and dinner and three times daily would really be better. No doubt she is a little anemic as well if you opened her Glands frequently so I will write her for some iron tablets as well.

“But no permanent damage has been done, I think.” He said with a smile. “I commend you on your restraint, sir.”

_I was not restrained_ , Tommy wanted to say, _she made it easy for me to take what I liked_. Instead he cleared his throat. “Thank you, again, for fitting her into your schedule.”

On the bed Annabelle had sat up and pulled her dress down. She was leaning forward, straining to hear what the doctor said over the sound of the running water.

The Doctor went and collected his case, opening it on Tommy's desk and taking out his prescription pad. He wrote out the recipe for the iron tablets and then another one, both under Tommy's name. “The second one is for nerves. It's a light sedative. A lot of Omegas become anxious during pregnancy, particularly during the later months. Small as she is I'd start out with a half tablet and I wouldn't give her more than one at a time.”

“Alright.”

“Unless you have any concerns, I'll need to examine her again in another month. I'll have my secretary arrange with yours a convenient time for the appointment.” The Doctor said as he stepped toward the door, Tommy opened it for him and led him back down the stairs.

“You can call my office with any questions and the girls will take down a note if I'm out on a visit. I'll call you back with the answer when I get back in. If it's an emergency just take her straight to the hospital but they will know how to find me and I will meet you there. But I don't anticipate that it will be a problem. Her mother and grandmother never had any trouble with their pregnancies.”

He put down his case in the front hall and began to pull on his coat again. “Oh and Shelby, as for the belt, I'd spare her that starting in her twentieth week. Your hand or the cane after that if you must but, safest of all would be to find another way to discipline her.”

Tommy wondered, briefly, how the man had known. He hadn't, after all, examined any part of her body that bore the marks of the beatings he'd given her during the Rut. But perhaps the man assumed all his clients took a belt to their Omegas.

“I will keep that in mind.”

Reynolds nodded. “She's a biddable girl, never gave me any trouble when it came time for her jabs. I'm sure she'll adjust well to her new circumstances.”

“Yes, I rather think she is, all things considered.”

When the door closed behind Reynolds, Tommy went back upstairs. Annabelle was still sitting on the bed, staring off into space, one hand pressed over her stomach, but she looked up when he came in. He crossed the room and sat down beside her on the bed, not touching her.

“I couldn't hear what he was saying in the lavatory. Am I alright?” She said, trying for a smile but lips trembling in a way he didn't like.

“You've lost some blood and you're a little dehydrated. I'll send Martha to fetch you some iron tablets and tell her to give you a beer with every meal.”

She nodded. “Alright.” She hesitated. “But Tommy... not the one for nerves please. Not the sedative. I don't... that is, I don't want to be sedated.”

“No, not the sedative.” He agreed. He took the two prescriptions from his pocket and tore the one for the second in two. “There. Better?”

She smiled, and scooted towards him, sliding easily into his arms. Little as she was she fit just in the crook of his arm when she nestled herself into his lap. She turned her face to him for a kiss and he let her have a soft, gentle one. “Thank you.”

“That is not something for which I require thanks, Annabelle.”

He turned, still holding her against him, and leaned back against the headboard. He held her for a long moment against him, stroking her hair and listening to her heartbeat slow from the thunderous rate it had started at. Small fingers slid into his waistcoat, gripping the shirt beneath. “If you're anxious, I'll just hold you here, eh?”

She nodded against his chest.

He didn't apologize for the rough way he had handled her the day before, nor the beating in the morning. Instead he said, “I needed to know that you were alright, that the baby was alright. That I hadn't damaged you.”

She nodded. “I know, Tommy, I know.”

“Why don't I work up here for the rest of the afternoon, eh? And I can have Martha bring us both dinner up here as well, if you like.”

She smiled. “Tea and marmalade and cold chicken perhaps?”

He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Anything you'd like, with your beer.”

She napped on the bed while he worked, then played a game of solitaire and painted her nails a new shade. He watched her out of the corner of his eye, flitting about the room, and he found that, though he had suggested it as a favor to her (and perhaps some kind of recompense for insisting on the visit from the doctor), he himself found her presence remarkably calming. The smell of her and the sounds of her moving about the room was like the first sip of whiskey rolling down his spine and making his muscles relax slightly.

Besides, he found the glass of whiskey he habitually took to mark the close of his work-day, even more satisfying with his little wife's lips wrapped around his cock.

But, unfortunately, he couldn't always work in their bedroom.

The Parliamentary session had started again and he returned to his duties there with renewed interest. Now that Mosley was dead there was much to do, dismantling the BUF and it's work. One evening the first week back he'd stayed late to take a drink with a member of the Labor party and discuss some machination for tearing down the work that Mosley had set into place. When he'd come home she'd been nearly frantic, pacing the room, and desperate for him. And, bastard that he was, he had enjoyed the way she threw herself into her arms, fluttering against him and begging him to hold her, to fuck her. The mewing sounds of satisfaction she'd made when he'd tossed her onto the bed, knotted her and reopened her Gland had been enough to bring him to an orgasm nearly as satisfying as those from his Rut.

And there was the inevitable confrontation between him and her brother.

It was Tommy who sought Patrick Grant out. He came to his office after most of the houses of Parliament were closed but he knew the man would be in his office because of a bill Patrick was writing. He knocked once but did not wait for a response before pushing open the door.

He stepped in and shut the door behind himself, leaning against it. Patrick Grant looked up and his brow quirked instantly, not making an effort to disguise his surprise. “Mr. Shelby.”

“Lord Grant.”

Patrick leaned back in his chair and waited until Tommy spoke next.

“Your sister is well.” Tommy said. “She is still confined but she is perfectly healthy.”

Grant shifted in his chair. “Yes.” He pressed his lips together. “My mother told me you asked Dr. Reynolds to give her a full report of his examination of Annabelle to her.”

“I hope she was satisfied.”

Patrick pressed his lips together. “He heard the baby's heartbeat. That was enough for her.”

“But not for you.”

“Unlike my mother, I am concerned for more of my sister's well-being than just the whelp you put in her.” Grant said coldly.

“And you think that your mother and I share this disregard for Annabelle's own health?”

“Would a man who was not have put her in such danger? I have not forgotten the state in which I found her in in Glasgow.”

“What happened to your sister in Scotland is something no one regrets more than me. If there had been any way for me to prevent it, I would have.”

“You speak as if you believe that I know what actually did happen to my sister, in Scotland.”

“Annabelle didn't tell you?”

“She didn't speak for a week after you... abandoned her. And after that, when I questioned her about what had transpired, she would shut her mouth again.” Grant snorted. “She has always been stubborn, has Annie. Even when I **commanded** her though, she would not speak against you.”

Tommy felt his hand clench at the idea of another Alpha **commanding** her, even her own brother. But he reminded himself that it would not be a prudent time to crack Patrick grant a right hook across his chin. With an effort of will he made his finger loosen and draw out the package of cigarettes from his waistcoat, to give his hands something more productive to do.

He let his mind sift through the details of all that had transpired after he and Annabelle had left London, deciding finally that there was no use in lying to Patrick Grant just then. “There was a shooting at the London House, to do with business in Glasgow. Not the business with Mosley but some financial dispute.”

Grant snorted. “Once a gangster, always a gangster.”

Tommy ignored him. “I took Annabelle to Birmingham for her safety, while I took care of it in Glasgow. I don't know how Mosley found out that she was there alone but he came and took her.”

Patrick's frowned deepened.

“I tore up Glasgow looking for her of course but she hadn't been taken there. Instead he took her to some friend's summer home in the Highlands. He sent me word to come but alone, or else he would shoot her in the head before the car door closed behind me. So I went alone, into what I considered was, at best, a trap, and at worst a clear cut invitation to my own murder.

“But I found her, eh? And I brought her back to Glasgow.”

Grant frowned. “What happened at the house then, in the Highlands?”

“I did what I needed to. To get your sister back.”

“You shot Mosley.”

“Does it matter?”

“I suppose not.”

“If you're asking me whether I would kill for your sister, the answer is yes. If you're asking if I would do anything in the world to keep her from harm, the answer is, again, yes.”

“You promised my sister, you promised me, that after Mosley was dead, you would let her go.”

“Circumstances changed.”

“Because you got her pregnant?”

_Because I love her_.

“Because she belongs to me.”

“You were quite explicit in your marriage contract, that she could end it, if she liked, whenever she liked. I had my lawyers look at it closely and if there was ever proof of abuse, mistreatment of any kind... well then, perhaps it wouldn't even need to be her who wanted to end it.” Grant said slowly. “And, after all, as her brother, I am her legal proxy as a Grant.”

“She's not a Grant. Her name is Annabelle Shelby now.”

“You took her to Rut, without her Heat. Whatever my mother and the society ladies who she takes tea with will say about it being romantic, about it being a show of her devotion... A liberal court judge might not see it in the same, forgiving light that the old guard Alphas and Omegas do . There can be no denying that it was a brutal act.”

Tommy didn't want to give the other man the satisfaction of knowing that he had offered Annabelle the choice to remain separated until he was out of danger of the Rut. He didn't think it would pacify him and besides, that conversation was private—no one's business but his and Annabelle's.

Instead he said.”It was a brutal act.” He took a drag on the cigarette, inhaling deeply and blowing out the smoke. “But I am a brutal man. And allow me to assure you, Lord Grant, that anything you might imagine I have done to your sister... it will be nothing compared to someone who tried to separate us.”

“Are you threatening me, Mr. Shelby?”

“It was my impression that we were speaking in hypotheticals. Are we not?”

When Grant said nothing to that, Tommy pushed himself up to stand away from the door. “Right, I'm sure your mother wants to see her daughter. Once Annabelle is done with her confinement, she can come take tea at our house.”

Grant snorted. “How very kind of you, to allow a mother to see her own daughter.”

Tommy turned and opened the door. “Goodnight, Lord Grant.”

He closed the door before Grant could reply.

He went back to the London house and found Annabelle playing solitaire on the carpet in front of the fire.

“ **Over the bed. Knickers down around your ankles.** ” He commanded her, barely leaving time for the door to close behind him.

She gulped, scrambling to obey. She stumbled to the bed and bent over the side, pulling her bloomers to the floor. He came to stand behind her and opened his trousers, pushing them down his hips just a bit. He took her hands, folding them at the base of her spine, securing them with one hand. With the other he spread one ass cheek wide enough for him to nestle between them. He was already hard but she was only just beginning to lubricate as he pushed in.

He groaned at the tight warmth within and she moaned at the sensation of being so full. He fucked her hard and fast, deep, punishing strokes that took the edge off the tight feeling of anger in his stomach. The conversation with her brother, the retelling of the story had riled him up again. Remembering how he had felt in Glasgow when she had been taken, and after she had left.

He spurted into her, knot swelling.

He stood behind her, pushing into her occasionally until his knot came down. He tucked himself away and left her, bent as she was, with his spend leaking down one leg. He went to his desk and poured himself a glass of whiskey, tossing half back immediately and refilling it.

On the bed she sat up, pulling up her knickers and arranging her dress again. She sat, eyeing him warily. “Are you angry with me, Tommy?”

“No, sweetheart, I'm not angry.” He lit a cigarette. “I just sometimes need to fuck you... it clears my head.”

She smiled. “And did it clear your head?”

“It did.”

“I'm glad then.”

He pointed at her with the hand that contained the glass. “You should call your mother, Annabelle, when you're done in the room, with the confinement. Invite her for tea.”

“Of course.”

But she stayed in the room for three more days. And finally, when it became clear that she was waiting for a signal from him that she could venture out again, he made an appointment for them to go to Bassange.

Her mother had sent a note regarding the chain, stating that she had sent it to Bassange for the fitting he had proposed. It had arrived almost immediately, Martha had told him, the day after he and Annabelle had-- a mark of Lady Grant's approval of their renewed relationship, whatever her son said.

Annabelle had dressed very carefully that day in a blue dress that she knew he liked, modest but cut to flatter her figure. She had put up her hair with Martha's help and then come down to his study.

He looked up when she came in for they weren't meant to leave for another hour or more.

“What is it, sweetheart?”

She bit her lip, clearly embarrassed about whatever it was she intended to ask.

“Can I... that is... I rather have a favor to ask.”

“Alright.”

“It's only... well... it's just that I'd like to ask... _traditionally_?” The last word trailed up into a question mark at the end.

It took him a moment to realize what she meant. He had been told about this in school, as an almost historical fact. It was not something that Alphas and Omegas of his class did, at least not in this century. It hadn't occurred to him to wonder if the nobility had kept the tradition alive, at least not until that moment anyway.

A _traditional_ Omega request required that the Omega _supplicate_ when making it.

“Alright then.” He agreed.

Carefully, slowly, she undid the buttons the front of the dress, pulling it down over her shoulders. When it was in a pool at her feet she slid off the bra and bloomers. The lacy white garter belt and stockings she knew he liked the look of, and offered no hindrance to her use, so she left those on. Then she sank to her knees and his throat went dry. She came forward in a crawl, on hands and knees, with her eyes low, not meeting his. She was blushing, he could see, quite fiercely but she moved with a practiced grace. She had been taught how to do this, she had practiced this as a girl, expecting that one day she would please her Alpha with it.

That thought made his cock stiffen in his pants. All those generations of good breeding, all the money spent on a posh education had not been intended for a man like him. No she had been destined to please another kind of man entirely with her submission and her grace-- some Earl at least, pretty as she was, someone with land and a title instead of just a lot of money, hard won. But she did submit to him. Meant for him or not, she belonged to him now.

_She caries your child, waits on your word, fucks you as you want, when you want_.

He sat as he always did, with legs spread in an unconscious show of dominance, and she came to sit between them. She tucked her heels delicately beneath her and, very carefully, put each hand on either of his thighs, palm up, then bowed her head such that her Mating gland was vulnerable and visible to him. It was not quite _Presentation_ but it made it clear that he could take what he liked.

Tommy was rock hard looking down at her.

It took him a moment of her silence to realize that she was waiting for him to acknowledge her, to ask what she wanted. If he turned back to his paperwork he was somehow sure that she would go on in that position until he moved her out of it. _How long would she wait_ , he wondered, _if I said nothing_.

“Alright, Annabelle, what is it that you want?” He asked finally.

She licked her lips. “I want you to collar me.. for the trip to Bassange.”

The thought went through him like a bolt of lightening, making his stomach clench. She had known, of course she had known, that the collar itself was from Bassange. He hadn't wanted to admit to himself that when he'd bought it he had chosen it specifically to match the leashing chain, to compliment it. He had wanted to see her leashed even then.

He swallowed. “Alright.”

He stood and she kept her hands pressed against the tops of his thighs. He took them gently and folded them together, bringing them down to rest on her own thighs.

He went to the large safe in the cabinet on one wall and opened it with the combination lock. Inside, amid the various firearms and paperwork, there was the blue-black velvet of the case. He got out the case and came back to sit in front of her. She did not need to be prompted to return to the position of supplication, with her hands on his thighs.

He put the case on his desk and opened it with the flick of the small latch. He took it out and looked down at her for a long moment. He could see that her heart was beating double time at the pulse point in her throat and she remained with her head bent.

He slid the collar around her throat and clipped it neatly into place. She shivered when the latch closed, a little quiver he felt in his thighs.

“Thank you, Alpha.”

“Is that the way you thank me, Annabelle?” He asked, voice deadly calm.

She shook her head, glancing up at him every so briefly. “No, sir.”

“Ask for it.”

“Please, sir, may I suck your cock?” She knew he liked eye contact when she said that, liked to see the little faint blush that never failed to spread across her cheeks.

He shook his head. “Tempting but, no.”

He took the ornate lead from the case and clipped it to the collar. With it he guided her to her feet. Then took her by the hips and turned her so she faced his desk. “Bend. Hands behind your back.”

Barefoot and without her heels she was too small to bet her hips to the edge of the desk. He had to help her, lifting her by the hips, such that she bent at at the edge of the desk. Her toes dangled helplessly, just brushed the carpet. She wouldn't be able to adjust herself out of whatever position her put her in, even if she wanted to. He pushed her knees wide with one thigh, spreading her.

“Soon you belly will be too big to fuck you like this.” He told her as he undid his trousers. “I want to enjoy you like this while I still can.”

He folded the lead over his hand a few times, pulling back so she had to raise her head off the desk, arching back uncomfortably. He took her wrists in his larger hand so she wouldn't be tempted to use her hands to offload the strain as he pushed into her.

She gasped as he bottomed out in her. The arching of her back had the effect of making her tighter, pressing her against the wood of the desk, which meant both that the stretch of him was more intense than usual but also that her sensitive nub was ground into the wood. He had little doubt that she would come with only a few well-angled strokes.

“But sucking my cock, you can do that when you're belly is as you are and you can barely walk for the child I put in you.”

She couldn't Present, held as she was in that position, but she didn't need to. The throaty gasping _please... please.. please..._ coming from her throat was more than enough to convince him. He bent and without ceremony or preamble, bit her Gland. She came instantly, taking him with her.

When he returned to his senses he bit the Gland a few more times, making sure that it would be bruised and purple for days. He held her like that as he did, arms crossed behind her and enough tension on the collar that she couldn't forget it was there.

When his knot had softened her Gland was a mess, sure to be sore and tender for days to come. But that had been the point, hadn't it, of coming in here. She wanted the jewelers at Bassange to see his claim on her. Well, he would show them what she meant to him, what he could do to her. What she _let_ him do to her.

He tucked himself back into her trousers and sat back down. He let her lie there, hands still behind her back and feet dangling, with his cum running down one leg, as he went back to the contract he had been reading over. He could hear her breathing, still a little rapid and labored, against the wood of his desk. Every so often she would moan, pressing her legs together and her hips down to wring another small, quaking orgasm from herself. He could feel how unsatisfied she was, smell it on her, to cum without him within her, but how desperate she was for relief.

The collaring, the prospect of the leashing, the supplication had clearly awakened in her something that he hadn't anticipated, a need that he wasn't sure he saw clearly yet.

When it was time to leave for the jeweler he let her slide off the desk to kneel beside his feet. He rang for Martha to bring another of her dresses and when it was brought he dressed her himself, pulling it over her head and doing up the buttons in the back. He let his fingers trail over the bruised Gland, relishing the ways she shivered at his touch.

“Thank you.” She murmured.

He didn't tell her it was ridiculous to thank him for that, for a pitiless fuck over his desk. Instead he said, “you're welcome.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so I am REALLY nervous about this chapter and particularly about the next chapter. Something is going to get kicked open when they go to Bassange. I don't want to do too many spoilers but like I started writing this scene and it just... got away from me. I am super nervous to hear what you guys think and have to say so please, please, please review. 
> 
> Unrelated note: anyone watching Bridgerton on Netflix? I am FANNING MYSELF.

**Author's Note:**

> Well as ever you guys, just pure, unmitigated, smutty trash from yours truly. This time the twist is... I'm giving it to you from the very first chapter! Seriously though, give me season 6 over here already, I'm DYING. 
> 
> My goals for this fic are as follows:  
> 1) take the whole dommy tommy shit to like... a whole new level  
> 2) stay true to the characters and particularly their voices. If dialogue sticks out to you as awkward/untrue or, even better, very true and something that really gets you into the moment please, please, please, let me know  
> 3) slightly better grammar than Obeissance, just slightly though. I'm still warming up to like... comas EVERYWHERE they're indicated. But if you tell me specific examples you find egregious, I will mend my ways.  
> 4) A/O world building. I wanna make up a bunch of weird shit and rituals that Alphas and Omegas in this world think/perform/do to each other. IDK why but like... I do  
> 
> 
> Sound like fun?


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